


The Sword of Mercy

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angelic Grace, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2015, Graphic Violence, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, Season/Series 09, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:36:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5240027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon-divergent after 09x10 Road Trip. Dead set on the black road to revenge, Dean gets called back to the hill made of 42 dogs by a new player who makes him a dangerous offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. SOUND

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank everyone at the Dean/Castiel Community on LJ for making this challenge possible, it was amazing to be a part of it :) Also a very big thank you to the amazing Androbeaurepaire for her astonishing artwork for this fic, and to Pirrofarfalla for the support and the excellent and extensive beta work. This fic would never have been possible and would definitely not be what it is now without these two very dear friends of mine.

 

 

 

 

_and with a sword of mercy_

_you walk a land_

_so empty full of shadow_

_by your side_

 

 

 

 

_Now:_

It's the color of morning.

He blinks against the light stabbing into his eyes, disoriented. His eyes water, and his heart is hammering away in panic. He doesn't know where he is. The light is a furious blaze of blue and white, but his eyes cannot close against the burn. One of his hands collides with something, it slides like leather under his skin. He draws in a breath. Slowly, the overwhelming brightness fades, and he understands he's staring straight into the sky. The blue, wide sky of morning. It's sunrise. He's staring at it through the window of his car, lying on his back. He sits up slowly, painfully, still blinking moisture from his eyes. Supporting himself with one hand poised against the driver's seat, he turns on the backseat, sets his feet down. Drawing in another shuddering breath, he drags a hand over his face, looks around. His digital watch has stopped. If it's sunrise, it must be about seven AM. He fumbles the phone from his pocket, finding a blank screen, cracked and smeared with water droplets. He stares at it, then at the dark splotches on his jeans, his jacket. Only now does it register that he's shivering. And then he catches sight of his wrist and cannot look away.

It's visible just above his sleeve, a jagged river pattern in dark blue, a row of similarly colored dots above it. He knows that if he pulls the fabric up, there would be other lines and shapes, words forbidden and forgotten, older than the earth. Instead, he pulls the sleeve down further. His hands are trembling, and he curls them into fists. He squeezes his eyes shut, and there are flashes of white light, a high dark ceiling, the window of a church –

Something bumps against the side of the car, and he flinches, tenses instinctively. He looks through the side window and through the back, but there is nothing there. He is parked at the side of an empty road, trees at his back and a wide open field at the other side. His heart is pounding, the words he'd barely heard as he had slipped into unconsciousness now resound in his head, 'you don't have a lot of time'. Remembers all of it now; the night black with rain, the trail of bodies. The rough scrape of his own voice around the 'yes'.

Hurriedly, he climbs over the bench, keys already in hand, and falls into the driver's seat. Jamming the key into the ignition with an unsteady hand, he pulls the car onto the road and heads west, putting the rising sun behind him as he speeds away.

>

Dean's head becomes clearer while he drives. After the first road sign, he finally gets his bearings, no idea where he’s headed, but at least he knows where the hell he is. On some off road near Jefferson City. How he got to Missouri all the way from upstate New York, he doesn't know. He keeps driving, because it doesn't really matter where he goes. He just has to keep moving. With the familiar rumble of the Impala all around him, Dean's heart rate eventually slows down somewhere between High Point and a traffic light. But his fingers still clench and unclench around the steering wheel in an off-rhythm, and he has to grit his teeth against the sensation of something foreign burning under his skin. Dean flips the radio on in an attempt to distract himself, but some asshole seems to have decided to have a Deep Purple marathon today, and he turns it off again in frustration. He's already entirely certain that someone's betting on the Lord that he's done bad.

For the next few hours, Dean concentrates on driving, pushing all thoughts out of his head and his fear down and deeper, where it belongs. It takes him a while to notice he's apparently driving towards a storm, cumulonimbus clouds stacking up over the horizon. Dean thinks about turning around, but the urge to get as much distance between himself and the place he woke up wins out. He stops once at a gas station, splashes putrid smelling water in his face. The tiny mirror above the sink is dirty and cracked in one corner. Only with reluctance and growing unease can he force himself to meet his own eyes. They look the same, rimmed in red and dark bruises under them. But with every second that ticks by, his fear rises. Fear of seeing _it_ behind his eyes. Coldly burning light, and he knows it's way down under, it's _not_ inside of him. But they are bound. It calls to him like it's alive. Dean drops his gaze to where his fingers are gripping the edge of the sink, knuckles white. He throws the paper towels in the trash and leaves.

The sky grows increasingly darker over him while he drives. The temperature falls, but it doesn't rain. Dean still has no idea where he is going, but the open road is a comfort he can't deny himself. He contemplates just driving through the night, but at around 1 AM he can feel his concentration slipping, his limbs growing impossibly heavy. He should find a ditch off the road somewhere, stay there for a few hours. But the memory of all that light in his face, blinding him – those sickening few seconds of acute panic, thinking he's lost control. His arms ache from his unrelenting grip on the steering wheel, and he pulls off at the next exit. The motel he checks into is dingy and looks half-empty. The lights in the 'welcome' sign under the name are flickering, the second 'e' is completely dark.

The clerk looks at him in suspicion, nose turned up when Dean walks in. He accepts the credit card without question and punches Dean's fake name into his PC with an air of bored annoyance. “Have a good night,” and he shoves a key with the number 5-F over the counter. He's not even looking at Dean while he does it, scrolling through something on his phone. Dean picks his duffle bag up from the floor, grabs the key, and turns his back on the man. The motel room is tiny and devoid of color, the sheets thin and faded, and the heavy gray curtains too big for the dirty windows.

Dean throws his duffle down by the bed and sets to work drawing salt lines at the door and windows. It doesn't make him feel safer at all, his muscles tense and jittery. The shower has mildew growing in one corner but he steps into it anyway, suddenly desperate for warmth. He stays under the spray for a long time, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against the tiles. The water pressure is pathetic, and the water only stays hot for about half a minute. But the way it hits his shoulders loosens the bunched up muscles there, and as long as he concentrates on the sound of it hitting the tiles, he doesn't have to hear his own thoughts. As long as the water slides over his face and he keeps his eyes shut, he doesn't have to see the dark blue patterns and sigils buried in his skin.

It's childish and pathetic, refusing to look. This was his choice. No one twisted his arm, no one tore the yes outta his throat. He held out his arms willingly, let every last of these sigils get branded into his skin. So he'd be able to do what he's gotta do. What he wants, what he fears – none of that means jack squat.

He pulls all his clothes back on when he finally steps out of the bathroom, half-heartedly towels his hair dry. After a moment's hesitation, he even puts his boots back on and slips into his jacket. The room isn't exactly warm. And Dean just isn’t safe here. He sits down on the bed with his back against the headboard, turns the TV on and then off again after just a few seconds. He can't stand the noise, and the images may as well be static. He falls into a fitful sleep with his head resting against the wall, a shotgun at his side, his fingers loosely curled around the stock.

>

It's a scratching noise outside his door that wakes him. He jerks awake instantly, images and shadows from his dreams fleeing from his mind before he can grasp them. Dean has an instant to grab for his gun and scramble to standing before he realizes with a sickening punch that the salt line is broken. And then the door bursts inwards and the night spits two demons into the room.

They're big, a man and a woman, clad in worn black leather and grinning at him openly, dark eyes gleaming in the light of the bedside lamp Dean didn't turn off. He lurches at them, rams the butt of his shotgun into the face of the first one when he moves to take a swing at Dean. He's fumbling for the demon killing knife when there's the sound of breaking glass behind him. Something barrels into his back with enough force to knock the breath out of him, and then panic flashes through him when his arms are restrained at his back in a brutal grip.

Dean struggles as best as he can, but the demon behind him only laughs dirtily in his ear, and the shotgun is wrenched out of his hand. One of the other demons comes around, blood dripping from his nose onto the carpet, and each of them take one of Dean's arms. Dean sags into their hold and tries to kick, tries to fight, but the second demon steps forward and hits him square in the face so hard it sends his ears ringing. “Hey, Dean,” she says, sultry, a wide grin stretching over yellow teeth. She hits him again, and he groans against his will, his vision going fuzzy for a moment. “Long time no see. Wonder how we found you?” She kicks him in the stomach and he doubles over, would have gone down if not for the demons holding him up.

The demons jerk him upright and he tries to spit the blood in his mouth at the one in front of him, but it mostly just dribbles down his chin. He grins and tries to chuckle, though it comes out more like a cough.

“Lemme guess. Jerk at the counter?”

The woman smiles, indulgent. “Oh no, we sent that one to his rest. The eternal kind.”

Dean grits his teeth, anger and guilt tightening his already aching insides. He should never have come here.

The demon steps closer, though careful to keep herself out of kicking range. “A mutual _friend_ gave us a tip. Said you were just _dying_ to take down the Queen, so how could we resist hunting you down?”

One of the other demons grips his hair, jerks his head back. “Gotta say, I'm disappointed,” she says as she slips a hand under his jacket and down his side, coming away with the knife.

She runs it down the side of his face without breaking the skin, then down his chest, stopping right above his heart. Ever so slowly, the demon increases the pressure, and he tries to jerk away from it, but there’s just nowhere to go.

“No,” he struggles against the demons' grip, struggles against the panic, “No!” Sick fear is washing over him, and his skin is on fire. The power he's felt simmering somewhere down below and far away from him is now _right there._ Suddenly, it's as if someone has turned the night into day, light washing over his vision and only getting brighter. In the distance, thunder is rumbling.

“What is this?! What – ” The woman is screeching, the stabbing pressure disappears from his chest, and the demons hold on him loosens, but it's far too late. Their screams fill the air as he crashes to his knees. The light is blinding, and yet he's unable to close his eyes. When it finally fades, there's a rushing sound like ocean in his ears, and his arms are aching like someone's cut them open. He falls forward. Black.

>

When Dean comes to, the first thing he notices is the stink of scorched meat. He has a hard time getting up, his limbs shaky and weak like he's lost a pint of blood. His breath shuddering in his chest, he stares in shock at the three bodies piled around him, their eyes burned clear out of their skulls. He chokes, staggers upright and stumbles into the bathroom, throws up into the sink. It's mostly bile, burning his throat and making his eyes water. He can't look at himself in the mirror. Dean shoves his sleeves up with trembling fingers, stares at the sigils on his skin, still glowing faintly. He grips the edges of the sink tightly, curls over it. Behind his eyes, the images of the burned out bodies linger.

“That fucking son of a bitch.”

He flushes away the mess in the sink, grabs for his duffle and his weapons, and leaves as fast as he can, not even bothering to close the door. Someone is bound to have heard, to have seen something. It's dangerous to leave the bodies behind, but he has no choice. Dean keeps his head down when he passes the empty counter, throws his weapons on the passenger seat and speeds away with squealing tires. The night swallows him up quickly, thunder still growling above. It's not raining, but the air is oddly charged. It crawls up his arms like electricity, and he shivers with it, buries deeper into his jacket.

He comes to a crossroads and the light is red. The streets are completely empty. He stops anyway. Above him, the traffic light swings back and forth, caught by some unbidden wind . The empty streets and swinging traffic light, the loose paper blowing over the sidewalk, the beer advertisement in a nearby storefront flashing red and yellow – it's silent. It's eerie. It's textbook horror flick, right down to the hairs raising at the back of his neck. He's being watched. He looks back to the storefront, beneath the glaring sign, and he’s seeing them. Shadows. In the doorways, shadows. His foot twitches against the accelerator and he grits his teeth, looks back up to the red eye of the traffic light. It must have been four minutes, and it still hasn't changed. He pushes his foot down.

Over the next few hours, the thunder recedes, but Dean's restlessness only grows. The sound of the Impala's engine seems far too loud in the surrounding silence, but he clings to it like a lifeline. Every few minutes, he catches himself searching out moving shapes in the corners of his eyes that always turn out to be shadows inside the car, thrown by the sparse street lights. And there's this other sound, like sandpaper dragged over a smooth surface. Like a whisper. Most of the time, he doesn't hear it, but when he slows the car down, when he gets lost in the empty expanse of road in front of him, it's there. Dean forces himself to breathe deeply and not listen. Decides to take a turn north when he comes close to El Dorado, Kansas, and switches to Route 77 N.

He finally stops in a deserted public parking lot just off the South Dakota border. Ugly weeds are growing out of the cracks in the pavement, and half the lights are busted. Dean parks in the far back, in the shadows. Only goes to the trunk briefly to throw together some hex bags to place inside the car, though he's not sure they're even strong enough. He dozes in the backseat with his gun in one and the knife in the other hand. Every noise makes him tense, and yet the anxious beat of his heart in the stillness is what jerks him out of his sleep again and again.

When the sky just begins to lighten, the black making way for a blueish gray, he finally goes under. The knife follows him into his dreams – he cannot see it, but he can feel its familiar weight in his hand. In his dream, he's walking through a dark hallway, the ceiling high above and stretching in curved arches, white and smooth like sea foam where the light is hitting it. The light that's shining in from the end of the hall, soft and rippling, like a wave. It holds onto his skin where it touches it, so warm, so cold. Dean blinks his eyes to see if someone's standing there, but its raw power washes over his vision. He takes a step towards it. Something crunches softly under his feet. He looks down in confusion, breath catching in his throat. The floor is white and flat, empty.

>

_Then:_

Dean follows a trail of stabbed bodies through a night black with unending rain.

The trail has lead him through three states. None of the victims seem to have been possessed before they died, there are no omens, and exactly zero of them were hunters. Dean can't find any connection between them at all. The only similarity is the method of killing – stabbed clear through the heart, and a strange set of perfectly aligned marks around the entry wound. He finally arrives in upstate New York at around 3 AM, and it has been raining for hours. He's on his way to the last crime scene when intel about a new body comes through the police channel he's hacked into. Dean curses, changes lanes. 42 Rover Street. Tension settles heavy over his shoulders. The streets are dark and deserted.

There are no police in sight when Dean pulls up in front of Castle Storage. He gets out of the car, the demon killing knife already gripped in his right hand. Dean walks up to the building, tries to make out something through the gloom. There is no way whoever it is doesn't already know he's here. The rain soaks him to his skin in seconds. At the entrance, a body is lying in a heap on the ground, blood mixing in with the rainwater. The exit wound is a dark spot on the man's yellow jacket.

In the shadows, under the blue and purple neon sign, stands a man. He steps into view when Dean comes to a stop by the body, keeping it between himself and the man. A glint catches his eyes in the dim light from the sign and the street lamps – a sword. The man is wearing a dark and neatly fitting suit, his lips curve up into a soft smile.

“'Your home, a black road and a promise,'” he holds the sword up playfully, pointing it at Dean's heart. “'They blind me, fighter – I hear you sing!'”

Dean snorts, stares determinedly into the man's eyes. “Can it with the power ballads. Why're you dropping bodies like bread crumbs?”

The man's dark features adopt a look of mock confusion and amusement, “Why, I thought this was the language that you best understand.” He lets the sword sink, takes a step closer and then holds up his hand when Dean tenses and instinctively drops further into a fighting stance. “You have nothing to fear from me, Dean. I am not here to kill you.”

Dean sneers, jerks his head towards the body on the ground. “Right. And these guys were just creative invitations to your idea of a tea party, I take it?”

The man's mouth twists with something that would be regret on anyone else. He waves a hand dismissively, “They would have died eventually. Some day.” He fixes Dean with an intense stare, the gravity of his tone weighing down the air. “Everything dies, Dean.”

Dean swallows, tightens his grip on the knife. Icy water is sliding down his neck. He fights back a shiver, whether from the chill of the rain or the man’s words, now isn’t the time.

“Who are you?”

The man's smile widens, he looks Dean up and down. “I admire your bravery, Dean.”

He’s circling around Dean now, seemingly unconcerned with Dean's tense stance, the knife in his hand. He doesn’t see Dean as a threat.

“You were hunting the angel, Gadreel, but the trail has gone cold. And now you're after the last Knight of Hell herself.” He briefly stops behind Dean's back. “It is a road that is likely going to lead you to your death.”

His voice is soft, contemplative. He comes back into view at Dean's right, and Dean stares at him through narrowed eyes. He clenches his jaw, hisses, “What is it to you?”

The man stops and looks away from him for a moment, sighs.

“I have watched you for a while, Dean. I can read your heart. I see your dreams – It's all your fault. All of it. Who is going to punish you for it?” Rain is sliding down Dean's back, and he’s given up fighting the shivers racking his body. The man's feet make no sound on the ground, his suit is perfectly dry. The man's eyes hold his. The sky is dark, the rain unrelenting, and this feels like defeat.

“What hope can you have of making this right?”

>

_Now:_

Morning comes too soon. Dean has a horrible taste in his mouth, like he's been breathing dust all night. He sits upright with a groan, looks around. The parking lot looks about the same as last night. Almost empty, if for a few dusty cars and rusting trailers. Dean gets out of the backseat, rotates his neck to work out the cricks. He drives another couple miles down the road to a nondescript diner, orders a coffee, and then goes to the restroom to splash some water on his face. The bathroom smells like cheap rose hand wash, but at least it's empty. Dean's cheeks feel rough under his fingers as he rubs the lukewarm water over his skin. He avoids the mirror entirely. He is sure he looks like hell. There’s no point.

The waitress is a young thing with a ponytail. She's wearing a Captain America shirt under her customary apron, and she smiles at Dean cheerfully as she pours his coffee, despite the fact that it's barely past 7 AM.

“Can I get you anything else?”

Dean looks up, startled out of his thoughts. He hasn't actually eaten in – he can't remember. There was a bottle of Jack in the trunk, almost empty the last time he saw it. Close enough.

“Uh, no. Thank you.”

The girl hesitates. Her name tag reads 'Andy'. Her voice drops a bit with her next words, growing softer.

“Are you sure?”

Dean pauses with the coffee raised halfway to his mouth, looks back up in confusion. Andy blushes, holds up her hands. She has a notepad in one, a chewed-up ball-point pen in the other.

“Sorry, sorry! It's just. You look like you could use a bite.”

She looks off to the side and pulls at her ponytail in what appears to be embarrassment.

Dean smiles before he knows what he's doing. It's genuine, but it feels strange on his face, stretching his mouth in a way that feels almost foreign for a moment. He raises his mug as if in answer. “Hey, it's okay. I'm good.”

Her shoulders relax and she looks back at him, squints her eyes in some blend of mock suspicion and amusement. “Of course, yeah. But just so you know, the french toast is really cheap.”

Dean laughs, shakes his head. “I'll keep it in mind.”

Andy nods, cheerful again, and moves over to an elderly woman sitting three tables away from him. Dean carefully tugs his sleeves further down his arms. The sigils on his forearms still ache like newly-formed bruises. Like ice pressed against his skin for so long, the pain has laced all through to the bone and is now buried there. Familiar. Dean concentrates on the warmth of the mug in his hand and keeps his head down.

The bell rings as the front door opens and two men enter. One looks like a farmer, the other like a news reporter. Dean looks up, then tenses when they stop in the middle of the room, stare at every single person only to hone in on him. They walk up to him quickly and he stands, barely has time to move out of the booth before they're on him, the farmer guy grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pressing him back roughly against the table.

“You! It's _you_ , why is it – ”

Dean grips the man's wrist but the hold is far too strong to break. Angels.

“Buddy, I have no idea what you're – ” But the skinny looking reporter guy interrupts him, the anger cold in his voice.

“He's working with Castiel. They cast us out, I'm sure they – ” The other angel doesn't seem to hear him. He's shaking Dean, tears are streaming down his face, and he’s screaming.

“Why is it _you_?! Why do you sound like _Heaven_?!” He raises his other arm, an angel blade gleaming in the muddy diner lighting. “I will never forgive – ”

Dean tries to twist away, his mind racing. It’s 7am and he is off of his game.

From the back of the room, he hears “Bill, call 911, call 911!” A voice filled with genuine terror. Andy. Something freezes inside Dean, fear and anger and despair rising inside him until it's all that he is. Something clicks into place, and he let's go off the angel's wrists, presses a hand against the man's forehead. Something roars to life inside of him, agony and creation and extinction racing up through his arms and lighting the angel's grace on fire. He screams, his hold on Dean loosens, and Dean hauls him around and slams him down on the table, covers him with his own body in a belated attempt to shield the others from the light. The windows in front of them break and he squeezes his eyes shut, grits his teeth against the noise, against the glass cutting into his skin and the pain like electricity running through his arms.

When it's over, Dean pushes himself upright slowly. Stumbles, because his arms are shaking so bad they are almost useless in helping him to stand. He's dizzy and disoriented, his pulse hammering in his ears. The angel's vessel slips from the table and hits the ground hard, lifeless. His breath wheezing and his teeth still clenched tight, Dean looks to the other one, but the angel makes no move to attack him, only stares at him in shock and open fear, taking a clumsy step back the moment Dean's gaze falls on him.

Dean takes a step towards him, fingers curled into shaking fists, but stops when he registers the soft sound of a small sob a few feet away from him. His head jerks up and he freezes, looks around. Andy is on her knees, half hidden behind one of the tables.

She's crying, staring at him in terror. “Are you – ” he begins to ask, his voice hoarse like he's been screaming, and she flinches when he turns towards her.

Dean stares at her. Then, there's the sound of sirens in the distance. By the time he looks back towards where the other one was, the angel has already fled.

Dean looks at Andy. “I'm – ”

The sirens get louder, and with a sinking feeling he realizes there is nothing he can say. Dean turns around and grabs the dead angel's blade from the ground. Seconds later, he's tearing out of the diner's parking lot and down the street. It takes the next hour and a half for his arms to stop shaking. The sunlight has faded, and the sky is filled with heavy clouds, pressing down on him.

>

When he sleeps now, it's in the car. In parking lots, at the side of the road. He checks into motels only to use the shower and then leaves after an hour. The road stretches, endless and familiar and unknown, ahead of him. Dean keeps his spare phone charged as best as he can. It lies on the passenger seat, buried under newspapers and cheap library print-outs. There are demonic omens on and off, but they’re all over the place. Abaddon is most likely on the move, building her regime across the country. But Dean's gut instinct says she has a base somewhere. Some place with an access door straight to Hell.

And if he's honest with himself – it's more than a gut instinct. He knows. He knows because he can _feel_ her. It comes and goes; a vague tugging sensation combined with the urge to _move_ , but it's still too muffled for him to make out any sort of direction. _“Don't worry,”_ Tamiel had said, his smile soft but his eyes calculating. _“You'll have an archangel's grace tied to you. Once you adjust, you'll be drawn to Abaddon like a moth to a flame.”_

He has nothing on Gadreel. He tries not to think about what it means that he might not have enough time to deal with that one too. The papers on the passenger seat rustle in the breeze through the half-open window. His phone has been silent for weeks now. Dean never looks at it during the day. But when he’s lying on the backseat and can't sleep at night, the car cold and empty, he unlocks the screen and stares at it until it goes black. One, two, three times. And then he throws it back on the disarrayed papers, turns his face against the seat back and forces his eyes to close.

In addition to his dreams of the hallway with the arches, there are nightmares that are so tangible he suspects they're visions. In them, he's in a wide and barren place, filled with dark spots and a floor that looks like pieces of the devil's trap that was painted on the ceiling in Bobby's house. Twisted symbols and the poisonous tail of a scorpion at his feet. The horizon is filled with storm clouds high as mountains, threatening and moving too fast. Thunder in the distance, and he has no idea where he is, but he knows Abaddon is somewhere out there. But the darkness is still disrupting his vision, his heart is beating too loud, he jerks out of his uneasy sleep. Dean can never hold onto the dream for more than a few seconds before it slips away from him, and he wakes up covered in cold sweat, terrified and shaky.

Apart from a few close calls, Dean hasn't had any run-ins with demons or angels since the morning in the diner three weeks ago. He had expected that to make it easier. It doesn't. The forces within him push and pull at his insides, clamoring for an outlet. He is constantly nauseous and simultaneously starving, and not even drinking can stop the random shaking of his hands. Dean's thoughts wander while he drives – the demons screaming and burning up around him, his hands on the angel's head, turning his grace to ash. With a sickening lurch, he realizes he _misses_ the way it felt. Dean barely manages to grind the Impala to a halt on the side of the road before he falls to his knees on the gravel and is violently ill.

He is somewhere near Salt Lake City when the silence pressing in from all sides finally becomes too much. The first bar he finds that looks just this side of shady, Dean pulls up and gets out, hunching his shoulders against the pouring rain. Inside, there are just enough customers that he might vanish into the crowd. No one looks up when he enters. There are a few pool tables at the back, and he figures he should hit them up later. He knows he’s running low on cash these days, but he can’t bring himself to really give a shit. Dean sits down at the bar, keeps his head down. The place has dark wood paneling, the walls are a deep dark red. There are a few black and white photographs he can make out through the dusty lighting.

“What can I get ya?”

Dean looks up at the bartender, a wiry looking woman wearing a tank top. He blows out a breath. Lately, it all tastes the same.

“Something dark and strong.”

She smirks crookedly and turns towards the liquor stocked behind the counter.

“That you talking or the weather? I swear the past three weeks, it's like the heavens been coming down on us.” Dean tries to smile at that, but it must turn out pretty pathetic. She sets the glass down in front of him. “Here, you look like you need it. Name's Tara, by the way.”

He knocks back a mouthful, hisses at the burn. It's not enough.

“Dean.”

Tara is drying some glasses with a rag, her eyes flicker briefly to somewhere behind Dean and then back to him. “You from around here or just driving through?”

Dean downs the rest of the shot and grips the glass tight to hide the tremble of his hand. His fingertips tingle. It doesn't help and he shouldn't, but he wants another shot. Wants to stay here where it's warm and where there's noise. Distractions.

Dean looks up to answer Tara when she does it for him, her eyes fixed on something behind Dean.

“Since, y'know, I've never seen you around here. And word travels fast like that.”

Dean stops, stares at her in confusion for a moment before it clicks. He sighs and then shifts in his seat to pull some cash out of his pocket. He puts the wrinkled bill on the counter, stands and nods at her.

“Thanks, Tara.”

She doesn't look at him, gaze still trained on the back of the bar.

“Don't mention it.” She sounds regretful, if stern.

Dean catches a glimpse of a couple rough looking guys at a corner table, glowering at him in open hatred. Time to go.

Dean hurries through the rain and back to the car, and then just keeps driving. He's pretty sure he's not being followed, but Tara was right – word does travel fast. After about three hours, the weather gets bad enough that he's forced to stop anyway. He parks under a causeway. The wind is so strong it slants the rainfall, reaching under the shelter and pounding against the Impala’s rear window..

Dean sleeps fitfully, his jacket doing nothing to abate the chill in the air. He expected to see the devil's trap floor and the storm clouds when he closed his eyes, to feel the threat of Abaddon's looming if elusive presence. Instead, he's standing in the hallway again, and the light under the arching doorway is closer. There's something like wind against his face and a whisper in the air. When he looks to his feet, tiny grains of sand are being pushed back over a mosaic floor. Dean looks up, and a sound pushes through the air, a note so high he feels it more than hears it. It's everywhere, it's urgent, and he turns around, because it sounds like –

He wakes up with a gasp, and a long, disorienting moment, has no idea where he is. His heartbeat slows when his vision focuses on the interior of the car, only to pick up again when he realizes the sound is still there. Dean looks around, tense, but can’t make out anything unusual. Nothing moves in the shadows surrounding him. The sound is _inside his head_. He fights down the rising panic and forces himself to .He stills, closes his eyes and listens. A flow of power surges up within him and his breath hitches. Dean scrambles for control, but the power dies down on its own, ebbing to a low hum at the back of his mind. The noise is still there though, like a pulse. But it doesn't feel like anger, nothing at all like his vague and muffled sense of Abaddon's presence. It tugs at his core in a similar way but it sounds strangely familiar. Like something he's heard before, but forgotten.

Dean looks at his watch, then remembers it stopped weeks ago. He digs his phone out from under his passenger seat research pile. It’s dead, of course. The sound is still there.

He gets out of the car with a sigh, throws himself behind the driver's seat and leaves the causeway behind. Dean has to drive slower than he'd like to, splitting his concentration between the road and keeping track of the sound humming against the back of his mind. Rain beats against the windshield and the sigils on his skin burn despite the cold. The pulsing sound never wavers, and after three hours he pulls up at an abandoned factory in Bishop's Falls. It's still raining, but at least there's a bit more daylight now. He takes the knife in one hand and the angel blade in the other, then walks through the sliding mud around the building.

Inside, it's silent. The back door creaks slightly on its hinges when he opens it, but nothing emerges from the shadows to attack. Dean takes three careful steps inside and then he smells it. Burned flesh.

He ducks under a few low hanging cables, sparking electricity from their frayed ends. He rounds a corner and then stops short as he catches sight of a massive glowing sigil on the back wall of the factory. The floor covered in mutilated bodies. Nothing moves. It’s silent.

Dean's instincts are screaming at him to turn and run, but he's staring at the sigil and he can't look away. It fills his sight, his senses, until it's all he can see, all that there is. He's standing in front of it before he's even aware he's moved. The moment his hand touches the outline, something surges up inside of him and the sound becomes the hallway, the arch becomes the sky. Light fills his vision and his breath stops, the world tilts. His hand slides away from the sigil and down the cold hard wall, down to the dark earth.

>

There is silence and nothing and peace, and then suddenly he is thrown out of his dreamless sleep by someone dragging him upright with a hand fisted in his shirt.

Dean flails his arms out and kicks, but he’s too confined in this space. He has a second to register he's in his car when he gets dragged out of it and pushed against the driver's side door, an angel blade at his throat.

The one holding him down is a woman with brown hair. He has never seen her before. And behind her – he freezes, is just about to open his mouth when Cas is saying, his voice flat with anger, “Who are you?”

>

_Then:_

“Buddy, you can talk all you want. I'm not going anywhere with you. I still don't know who the hell you are.”

The man is still smiling, but now it takes on an almost sad set. He holds his sword into the rain and watches the water slide off it and fall down to the ground. “The last of the Grigori, the great Watchers. My name is Tamiel.”

Dean frowns at him. “Right. So you're an angel, and you're after Abaddon _and_ Metatron. Why?”

Tamiel is silent for a moment, and when he looks up there is genuine emotion filling his eyes for the first time.

“Because I love humanity. And because I want to finally go home.”

Dean scoffs, looks at the corpse between them, “Sure have a funny way of showing it.”

Tamiel shrugs, the smooth mask back over his features. “Humans can only come to me. Unless we are compelled to kill you for a higher purpose, it is forbidden for us to seek you out. These humans will be rewarded in Heaven once the gates are open again.” He fixes Dean with a hard look. “I do believe in the merit of sacrifices.”

Dean stares at him. “You say you don't have the mojo to do this yourself, I get it. But why help _me_?”

Tamiel chuckles at that, shakes his head, “You are still the Michael Sword, Dean. You are the perfect vessel. But other than that – because I like you.” At Dean’s scoff, Tamiel adds, “What, is that so hard to believe? Why would I hate you? When no one hates you more than you hate yourself.”

Dean grits his teeth, but stands his ground, holds his head higher and glares into the angel’s eyes.

“I do this – what happens if I lose control?”

Tamiel holds up his sword. Water slides down the blade and disappears. “If you become a dangerous _thing_ , I will know. And I will find you.”

Dean swallows, looks down at the corpse at his feet. The dead man's face is turned towards him, the river of blood lost to the murky rainwater puddles on the cracked concrete. The man's features are slack, almost peaceful looking. Dean stares at him and he feel so _tired_. He doesn't want to feel that way anymore, to feel anything. But this mess with Abaddon, it's on him. It's one last thing he's gotta fix, no matter the consequences. He looks back up and sets his jaw.

“Fine. Let's dance.”

Tamiel holds two fingers to his head and he _moves_ , Castle Storage, the unrelenting rain, and one necessary sacrifice fades from view. The next second, they're standing in a chapel. Tamiel is backlit by the rows of candles in front of the altar, and the light is reflected in the stained glass windows.

Dean looks around. “Thought Metatron's party trick clipped you guys’ wings for good.”

Tamiel snorts. “The Watchers were never as dependent on Heaven as the other angels. And anyway, I learned a trick or two in my time down here.” He pauses. “Don't you recognize it, Dean?”

Dean is just about to ask when it hits him. The floor and the windows look different, the ceiling is damaged, cracked apart, but of course he knows. How could he forget? He was here when –

“Best place to whisper through the door,” Tamiel is saying. Involuntarily, Dean looks down to his feet. The flames of the candles flicker in a breeze he doesn't feel. Dirt and debris from the damaged ceiling are being pushed across the floor, away from the altar.

“Hold out your arms.”

Dean pushes his sleeves back and Tamiel grips both his wrists in a firm hold, closes his eyes. Dean takes a breath, his heart hammering in his throat. His mouth is dry and although he hisses the word out, it still sounds too loud, like a stone dropping to the bottom of a well.

“Yes.”

Instantly, the fire roars to life at the angel's back and it's like the air around them breaks. Gravity is like an iron weight on his shoulders, and Dean crashes to his knees. Tamiel's hold is like being chained to a mountain, and the places where he touches Dean's skin feel like something is being pushed forcefully underneath it. Sound is replaced by a sensation like someone is beating a drum deep down inside of him. Dean is vaguely aware that he is screaming. Inside his head, it is silent. Time disappears. All he sees is the ceiling above, the painting of a soft blue sky with white clouds and iron wings, overlaid in places by mortar and covered in hairline fractures. Then, his vision slides away completely for a moment. The next thing he sees are shoes in front of him, going in and out of focus.

An arm slides under Dean's knees and someone picks him up. The morning light disappears and is replaced by darkness and cold. He feels himself being laid out on a cold, wet surface. Water beats against his back and shoulders, washes over his face. Dean blinks and groans, tries to move away but the water is everywhere and his body weighs a ton.

“There are many people gunning for you, Dean. It's good I was the one who found you first.”

The voice is somewhere above him. Dean blinks more water out of his eyes, but he can't see. The voice is growing fainter, someone is leaving.

“Though, you would have ended up with a blade in your hand and a mark on your arm one way or another. They'll all be after you now. Maybe I'll send some of them your way. Get you used to it.” A pause. “As you know, you don't have a lot of time.”

Silence. He reaches out a shaking hand. Nothing. Just rain. Always rain. Always silence. His hand falls back down and he fades.

>

_Now:_

“Cas, what the hell is going on?”

Dean pushes against the woman, but she only slams him back against the car, cutting his neck with her blade. He hisses against the pain and she stares at him, shocked.

“He is not an angel. I don't understand.”

Cas lays a hand on her arm and she reluctantly, she eases back and releases Dean.

“Dean? Is that you?” Cas sounds calm, but there's a tension not unlike fear in his voice. Dean looks from him to the woman who is still holding her sword pointed at him.

“Yeah, why would – ”

And then the angel in the diner flashes through his mind. _Why do you sound like_ _Heaven_.

“We came here to look for survivors, but Hannah said you sounded exactly like – ”

Dean sighs, leans back against the car and rolls up the sleeve on one arm, “It's probably because of this.”

Cas takes his wrist in hand to turn Dean's arm more toward himself, then goes utterly still for a few seconds. When he releases Dean's hand there's a quiet fury in his voice. “Damnit, Dean.”

Dean shoves his sleeve back down, angry. He doesn't say anything, just stares past them at the mud and the surrounding fields. Cas sighs, then there's the sound of something metallic.

“Hannah, take my car, report back to the others. I'll go with Dean.”

Hannah draws in a breath. “Castiel, are you – ”

Cas is holding out his keys to her and she takes them hesitantly. “I will come and get it later. The others need your help. Don't worry about me.”

Cas goes over with her to the car and takes a bag out of the trunk. He returns to stand at Dean’s side, but neither of them speaks until the Continental disappears around the corner. Cas is staring at him when Dean looks back to him.

“You look terrible, Dean.”

Dean snorts and shakes his head, opens the door and gets behind the wheel. Cas sighs and goes around the car to take the shotgun seat.

The first few miles pass by in silence. Dean has no idea where they are even going, he just drives. Crosses into Wyoming and takes Highway 85 south. He glances at Cas a few times, takes in his slightly slumped posture, a scabbed over cut on his left hand. He's wearing jeans and a worn looking blue jacket. Cas is looking out the window, his mouth set in a firm line. He doesn't appear angry anymore though, more like worried. Like he's waiting for Dean to share what happened, instead of demanding it from him. Dean grips the steering wheel tighter, a wave of guilt settling in his gut. He opens his mouth to ask Cas what the hell he’s even doing here, but what comes out is, “It was a Watcher.”

Cas looks over to him, his blue eyes widening in surprise. Dean takes a breath, and then tells Cas about the night at Castle Storage, at the chapel. Keeping his gaze trained on the road, refusing to meet the eyes he can feel watching him. Cas stays silent during Dean's halted account. Dean skips over some parts he hasn’t even been able to process himself, that he can’t bring himself to tell Cas. Like Tamiel promising him he'll kill him if he goes nuclear, or about the visions or the shakes. About the realization that releasing that kind of destructive power within himself had made him feel _calm_. At _peace_.

By the end he feels drained, but a little less like the weight of the fate of the world is pressing solely upon his shoulders. When Dean finally risks a glance at him, Cas is staring at where his hands are fidgeting in his lap, thumb absently rubbing over the half-healed cut.

Dean frowns, suddenly realizing, “Thought you got your healing mojo back.”

Cas lets out a breath and finally looks up from his hands, his face turned towards the road.

“I gave it up.”

Dean shoots him a startled look. He switches lanes, slows down a bit.

“Come again?”

Cas is still looking straight ahead. “I made a deal with Hannah and the others. I help them investigate these sigils and set up a base camp, and in return, they would help me extract this grace again before it killed me. I gave it up about a week ago. This was the last mission I was on with Hannah.”

Dean looks at him. Something isn’t sitting right with him.

“What about your own grace?”

Cas doesn't answer for a long moment, his gaze trained on the passing landscape out of the passenger side window..

“I'm hungry. Can we stop soon?”

>

Dean sits in a corner booth, positioned so that the door of the diner and the window facing the parking lot are in clear view. His fingers are wrapped loosely around a cup of coffee that he's not actually drinking. Cas comes back with two baskets of loaded cheeseburgers in his hands. He sets one in front of Dean, regardless that Dean had told him he wasn’t hungry. Dean sighs, but doesn't say that he's more nauseous than hungry. For a while, they sit in silence, Cas eating his burger slowly and Dean picking his into pieces rather than eating much of it. He’s more concerned about every patron that walks in the front door.

“Metatron kidnapped me. About three weeks ago,” Cas says suddenly. He's still chewing and looking pensively out the window when Dean swings his gaze around to him in surprise.

Dean frowns, “What he want?”

Cas rolls his eyes and makes a disgusted noise. “I don't know. Mostly I think he wanted to just listen to his own voice.” He pauses and scowls down at his burger. “It was annoying.”

Cas' disgruntled expression actually makes Dean smile, and something flickers across Cas' face for a moment when he notices it. The moment is broken as he shakes his head and continues, “I think he was unsatisfied with the direction things were going and wanted to push me into doing something else. He has this – idea.” Now Cas looks genuinely angry. “That all this is just some story, and he gets to be the author.”

He looks at Dean meaningfully. “He’s playing God.”

Dean snorts, shakes his head, “Sounds like Metatron.”

Cas nods, pushes his now empty basket away from himself. “He also mentioned my grace in passing. But the way he said it – like the only way I could stop him was to find it again. So, I decided to more or less do the exact opposite of what I think he wants me to do and hope for the best.”

Cas is fiddling with the paper wrapping of his straw and looking at where children's laughter can be heard from the parking lot. A small smirk lights his face. “Apparently, that has worked out well for one of us in the past.”

Dean feels himself smile at the memory, long ago words from a very frustrated angel of the lord. His eyes are trained on Cas' hands. How he runs his fingers over the paper without ever tearing it. Then someone walks past their table and Dean makes himself look away, jerking himself out of his thoughts, and stands.

“We should keep moving.”

>

Cas falls asleep in the passenger seat for a while. Dean just keeps driving, doesn't even turn the radio on. It's been weeks since that night at Castle Storage, and he still can’t stand the noise. Cas is slumped in his seat, his head leaning against the window. Dean should wake him, ask him why the hell he’s even still here. With Dean, who probably smells like a liquor store and isn't sure he can even hold an honest conversation anymore, after months of lying. Dean, who just got another member of his family killed and has to stay away from his brother to protect him, because Dean is the monster in this fucked up story.

Dean grips the steering wheel tighter, glares at the slowly darkening sky. He should be angry. It would make this easier. He should stop at the next big town and leave Cas behind, like the asshole that he is. But he knows he can't do it. Even asleep, Cas' presence radiates warmth and safety and life, and Dean is once again too selfish to turn away from it. Ain't that a son of a bitch.

When Dean gets back behind the wheel after filling the tank up, Cas is sitting up in the shotgun seat and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. His hair is in even worse disarray than usual. Dean looks away, his fingers twitching in his lap.

“Are we going to stop for a motel?”

Dean starts the car, eases her back on the road. “Don't actually got the cash,” he admits. “You?”

Cas doesn't say anything for a moment while he appears to be mulling this over. “Then where have you – ” He cuts himself off when he realizes, then makes a frustrated noise under his breath. “I have the cash. Sleeping in the car is just uncomfortable, Dean.”

Dean chuckles without humor, “Yeah, it is.”

Cas throws him a glance, then digs his phone out of his pocket and begins thumbing through something on the screen. “How near are we to Cheyenne?”

Dean thinks back to the last sign he saw, calculates in his head for a moment. “'Bout twenty minutes.”

Cas hums. “There is a reasonably cheap motel just off Exit 9.”

Dean hesitates, then exhales on a sigh. “Cas, it's not exactly safe hanging around with me right now. I could just – ” But Cas interrupts him with an impatient sound, finally looking up from his phone.

“Then we'll take turns keeping watch. It's just for a few hours, Dean.”

Dean shakes his head but starts looking for the exit.

Their room has a flat screen looking almost as dirty as baby's windshield after a day on the road and bedspreads with a hideous flower pattern. Cas looks unconcerned about the whole thing, just puts his bag down at the end of one bed and then leaves again to get some take-out from the Chinese place they drove by on the way in. Dean stands in the empty room for a moment, torn between watching the windows and the door, and just lying down on the bed and turning his face into pillow and never moving again. He compromises by drawing salt lines at the door and window, then closes the bathroom door behind himself and takes a shower. He ends up staying under the water way longer than he intended, just letting it wash over his shoulders and drown out his thoughts. He changes into what are probably his last of his clean clothes, then goes back out into the main room.

Cas is sitting on the bed closest to the window, poking around in a take-out container with a pair of chopsticks. Another plastic bag with a similar container is sitting on the nightstand by Dean's bed. Dean ignores it, instead digging the bottle of Jack out of his duffle and taking a long swig. He sits down on the edge of the bed so that he's facing Cas.

He runs a hand through his still wet hair, “So that writing on the wall, that sigil – what was it?”

Cas is frowning at the bottle in Dean's hand as he swallows what he'd been chewing. ”Metatron is using it as a trap for the angels. It lures them in, then he has one of his followers kill all but one of them.” He pauses, a wry smirk and tilt of his head. “One lives to tell the story. I think he wants to push us – them – into taking up arms against him.” Cas lets his chopsticks drop into the container and he looks so nauseated for a moment that Dean almost regrets bringing it up at all. “I was helping Hannah with this because she could hear it, and I wouldn't be affected by it anymore.”

Cas resumes poking around in the container. Dean kind of wants to ask if he even likes Chinese. Or ask how he's been this last two months. If he knows how _Sam_ is. Instead, he stares at the far wall and takes another swig from the bottle.

Rain is softly beating against the windows. Cas suddenly looks up and asks, “What did it sound like to you? The sigil?” If it weren't so ridiculous, Dean would think Cas is just asking in the hope that answering will stop Dean from drinking.

Dean swallows another mouthful and then blows out a breath. “I dunno – like a pulse? It woke me up, actually. And when I touched it, I passed the hell out. Can't remember even getting back to the car.”

Cas is chewing with a pensive expression on his face, then sets the container aside and scoots up towards the edge of his bed, closer to Dean. “Show me your arms.”

Dean blinks, his body frozen while his heartbeat kicks up a notch. “What do you – ”

But Cas is already holding out his hands. Dean swallows, puts the bottle on the floor and shoves up his sleeves. Cas takes both his forearms in a gentle hold, turns them so that the inside is facing up. His fingers are warm against Dean's skin. Cas hums under his breath for a moment, then points at the biggest circular symbol, two circles enclosing a pentagram and two heptagons. “The sigil of Dei Ameth, seal of the truth of God. Power over all creations.” He runs a fingertip over the writings, “There are several names of God and of eight angels, Cafziel, Satquiel, Amael, Raphael, Anael, Michael, Gabriel.” Dean goes utterly still under Cas' touch, feels his face heat. He should move out of Cas' hold, he should –

“This wedge-shaped one is a Keystone, a Royal Arch Symbol. In masonry, it's the stone that holds together a stone arch. A true feat in early human engineering. It allows you to incorporate windows and doorways into a building without sacrificing strength.” Cas is running a fingertip over it, seemingly lost in thought. Dean tries to breathe flatly, suddenly and weirdly aware of everything his body does.

“Symbolically, this stone was placed at last, and completed an arch created by the two pillars of the tree of life, Joachim and Boaz, mercy and severity.” Cas turns Dean's arms slightly to look at the Enochian above and beneath the sigils, separated by thin lines and small dots, similar to the river pattern around Dean's wrists. Cas points at the letters from right to left and top to bottom while he reads them out loud, baeouib – righteousness, alonusahi – power, a a caosga – on the earth, vime – wrath.” He pauses. “Teloah – death.”

He grimaces, moves his hold to Dean's wrists and runs a thumb over the pattern there, “I'm not sure what this means. Rivers often represent the border between Heaven and Earth, but – ”

Cas finally looks up and whatever he sees on Dean's face apparently makes whatever he was about to say die in his throat. Dean inhales sharply and rips his hands out of Cas' hold. He looks away and shoves his sleeves back down, grits out, “Your food is getting cold.”

Cas doesn't respond, makes no move to draw away from Dean. For several seconds, both of them seem caught in the moment. Then Cas draws in a breath. “Dean – ”

Dean gets up so suddenly Cas flinches in surprise. He keeps his gaze trained on the floor when he says, “I need some air.”

Without waiting for an answer, Dean turns around, picks his jacket up from his bed and leaves. The door shuts behind him with a click he barely hears above the feverish beating of his heart.

>

Dean ends up just taking a walk that leads him around the motel and back to the parking lot. He had been itching to drive, or to find a bar and get a drink that would burn deeper than the Jack. But then he'd remembered how his biggest apprehension towards staying overnight was their safety, and grudgingly resigned himself to walking in the shadows. At least this way, he was kind of doing something useful – if someone had followed and was watching them, he'd be sure to draw them out. But nothing comes at him out of the shadows, and he knows he should be grateful for it. Andy's pale face is still vivid in his mind. And yet his hands are clenched in agitation, and he has to repeatedly push down the clamor inside himself that demands destruction to drown out the weight that's been dragging him down.

When he gets back to their room, the light is still on and Cas is slumped against the headboard of his bed, fast asleep. Guilt stabs at Dean's chest, but he also feels better just knowing that Cas is alright. Cas' fingers are curled in his lap and he's still wearing all his clothes. His face is turned towards the lamp on the nightstand, and his slack features are softened further by the gentle glow. But if he keeps on sleeping in that position he's going to have a horrible crick in his neck come morning. Dean is just about to shake Cas' shoulder when he hesitates, and then he carefully slips an arm between Cas' side and the headboard and slowly drags him down to lay him out on his side. Cas mumbles something when his head hits the pillow but mercifully doesn't wake up.

Dean takes a step back and looks away, digs his fingernails into his tingling palms. He sits down on his bed, snags the bottle of Jack, but then puts it down again. He scrubs a hand down his face. For a while, he just sits there and breathes with his eyes closed. Dean contemplates leaving the light on, because it apparently doesn't bother Cas, and after so many nights enclosed in the dark of his car, the glow is oddly soothing. But it's the middle of the night, and if anyone is watching it might make them look suspicious. He turns it off.

The inside of the room seems abruptly even more silent and encroaching. Dean can barely hear Cas breathing on the other bed. He leans his back against the headboard and stretches his legs out in front of him, his duffle full of weapons by his side. This way, Dean has both the windows and the door in view. Cas moves a bit in his sleep, but nothing else does. He still has no idea why Cas is even still here, what he wants from Dean. But it's been so long since Dean has seen him, heard his voice. So long since they’ve been able to just talk, just the two of them. He tries to push the thoughts back down, but he can’t. For the rest of the night, he stares at the shadows dancing across the wall until they’re all he sees.

>

Dean startles awake to the sound of a door opening. He lifts his head, panic already kicking his heart rate up, but it's just Cas. He's coming out of the bathroom, toweling at his wet hair. He smiles when he sees that Dean's awake, “Hey. I didn't mean to wake you.”

Dean groans, his head still feeling fuzzy. He drags a hand over his eyes and pushes himself back up into a sitting position. When he looks up again, Cas is still standing there, worrying the edges of his towel between his fingers. “Dean, if I did something wrong last night – ”

Dean cuts him off with a dismissive hand gesture. “It's fine, Cas. I was just – ” He doesn't know what he was. Cas comes closer and Dean blows out a breath, forces the words out before his cowardice takes reign again. “But I have to know what you’re planning here. Because I gotta find Abaddon and that's it.”

Cas sighs and lets the towel fall onto the bed, then moves to sit down opposite Dean. The same way they had sat last night, though now he's careful to keep a respectable distance between them. His hair is still wet and he's wearing a different shirt than yesterday. Something between Dean's ribs aches and he shifts his weight, pushing the feeling away.

“I think you should come back to the bunker, Dean. Wait, please. Just listen,” he adds when Dean opens his mouth to object. “I know Sam has been trying to track Abaddon down as well since it became clear we couldn't find Gadreel. He’s become one of Metatron enforcers, I suppose. Strategically speaking, it makes more sense for you and Sam to combine your efforts on this.” He pauses. “How have you been tracking her?”

Dean makes a frustrated sound and motions at his head. “I can sense her, sort of. Tamiel said I'd find her when I was ready. I think I kind of – _see_ her sometimes, when I sleep. But it's like a bad radio signal, goes in and out.”

Cas nods as if he had expected something like this. “I don't think Sam will object to you working together on this. And don't you think a stable environment where you're not constantly on the run will help your focus more?”

Dean hears the criticism in Cas' voice, but it's mild, his tone carrying an undercurrent of worry. Dean looks away, rubs a hand over his thigh. “What about you?”

Cas leans back, mirroring Dean's pose. “I think I might be able to help you with navigating what you’ve been seeing – teach you how to draw it up when you're awake, because then you'll have more control than when you sleep. I expect I'll have to leave if Hannah needs my assistance, but I would like to help you with this, as much as I’m able.”

Dean chuckles without humor, shakes his head. “Why are you doing this, Cas? I mean, helping the angels, I get it, but me? You don't owe me anything.”

Cas is quiet for a moment and Dean refuses to look at him, itching to get up and turn away, but he finds himself rooted to the spot. Cas sits up straighter and simply says, “I will help you because I want to, not because I feel obligated.”

Dean sucks in a breath, doesn't know what to do with that information. “And your grace?” he asks, his voice sharper than he means it to be, “did you gave that up because it was what you wanted?”

Cas looks taken aback for a moment, hurt flashing through his eyes. But his voice is calm when he says, “I admit that Metatron's plans were problematic. But in the end – yes. I wouldn’t have chosen differently.”

Dean sighs, the fight going out of him. “Okay, Cas,” he says, quiet and regretful and with his gaze turned towards the floor. “Okay.”

Cas stills, and Dean can feel him watching him. “What about you, Dean?” he asks, softly. “Did you do this because you wanted to?”

Dean snorts, gets up to rummage through his duffle bag for his razor. “Had to say yes for it to work, didn't I?”

“That's not what I meant,” Cas says, quiet and oddly sad.

Dean just shakes his head bitterly and closes the bathroom door behind him.

>

They're only a little over 400 miles from Lebanon, and the first hour of the drive is spend in silence after Cas decides that he hates every single radio station because the commentators are so aggravating. Dean doesn't put a tape in because he still doesn't feel like it, and Cas doesn't seem to mind the lack of distraction. The few times Dean glances at him, he looks like he's mulling something over, so Dean just lets him be. The sky is clearer than it has been in days, just a fine layer of thin clouds at the horizon. Dean gets lost for a while, staring at the road ahead of him. His arms ache, and every so often the power and terror he's pushing down rises up, but as long as he just concentrates on the road, he can manage it.

He is jerked back into the present by Cas saying, “I started thinking about giving up my grace after I met Daniel.”

Dean looks over to him, frowns in confusion at the wistful expression on Cas' face. “Daniel?” Cas nods.

“It was just after Hannah convinced me to help her find other angels that would assist us against Metatron. He was fishing at a river when we found him.” Cas pauses, rubs a thumb over the palm of his left hand, seemingly lost in thought. “He chose not to come with us. Because, for the first time in his life, he _had_ choices. He said he had decided he did not want to give up what he'd found down here.” Cas hesitates, then adds, “I realized I didn't either.”

Dean doesn't know what to say to that, but Cas doesn't seem to expect any reply anyway. He also does not ask what exactly it was that Cas decided he didn't want to lose. He tries to concentrate back on the road, but now his thoughts are in disarray. The memory of Hannah holding the angel blade to his throat rises unbidden in his mind, of Cas staring at him like he'd never seen him before. Dean fights with himself over the next couple of miles, and only after they've stopped once to get some water from a truck stop does he finally work up the courage to ask, “Do I – do I sound like Michael to them?”

Cas looks at him, but doesn't appear surprised by the question. “Yes and no,” he finally says, his voice calm but with a tense edge to it. “You radiate the power of Heaven, and it's definitely Michael's grace you're using, but his consciousness isn't here. There is no thought, no song, and no awareness. Hannah said you sound more like Heaven _itself_. And since you also were near the sigil when we found you, she assumed you had to be an angel under Metatron's control.”

Dean swallows, takes the information in with a mix of relief and rising anxiety. He motions at Cas, has to cough because his throat feels oddly blocked. “But you – you don't hear that? Anymore?”

Cas looks back to the road and sighs. “I am not sure what I am, at the moment. It's true that I can't hear it as an angel could, but I could tell something was different. You didn't feel – quite like you.” For some reason, Dean feels his face heat, and he grits his teeth to fight it down. Cas hesitates and then asks, “Dean – you know you didn't have to do this to yourself, don't you?”

Dean keeps his eyes trained on the road, and doesn't answer.


	2. SHADOW

When they pull up to the bunker, Dean just sits there for a minute, torn between going inside and turning the car around. He shouldn't be here. He'd promised he would keep his distance. Cas doesn't push him, just stays in his seat and waits. Finally, Tamiel's reminder that Dean doesn't have a lot of time wedges itself between his warring thoughts, and he exits the car and gets their bags out of the trunk. Sam is sitting at one of the library tables with his laptop when they enter, several files and print-outs arranged around him. His shoulders are tense, but overall he looks much better than the last time Dean had seen him. Sam's face goes blank when he sees Dean, but he doesn't say anything. Cas clears his throat.

“I'm uh, going to make some coffee.” He gently takes his bag out of Dean's hand and then disappears down the hall.

Dean stops several feet away from where his brother is sitting. “So, uh. Got any news on Abaddon?”

He avoids Sam's eyes and looks at the research spread across the table without really taking any of it in. Sam is silent for a beat, then blows out a breath. “Yeah, and it's not good. Mara and Randy called me last night with something really strange going down in Milton, Illinois. I was about to head down there when they called again an hour ago.”

Sam digs out the print-out of a photograph that looks like it was made with a cell phone from under a file and hands it to Dean. The photo shows the vague outline of a shelf holding several glass jars, filled with glowing blueish lights. “Are those – ”

Sam nods, looking grim. “Souls. Abaddon has been mining them. And not just in Illinois.”

Sam pauses briefly, and Dean looks up from the photograph, dread pooling in his gut like a lead weight. “She's creating an army.”

Dean sighs, chucks the print-out back onto the table. Sam is asking, “What about you? Anything on how to stop her?”

Dean stops and fights with his words for a moment, before finally just sitting down in one of the chairs and pushing his sleeves up. Sam's eyes go wide and his back tenses when he catches sight of Dean's arms. “Dean what – ”

Dean tugs his sleeves back down, forces himself to explain. “Met this Watcher guy, some kind of angel. Turns out Archangels have enough juice to stop a Knight of Hell. I'm not – Michael's not here,” he adds quickly at Sam's alarmed expression. “Just borrowing his mojo for a while. The death ray part of it at least. So I can eighty-six Abaddon once and for all, and Metatron.”

Sam leans back, his expression darkening. “'Just borrowing'? Dean, whatever this is, what happens if you're not strong enough to control it?”

Dean bites back an angry remark, forces himself to take a calming breath. “That guy out there, that angel? I go dark side or whatever, he's gonna take me out. He made a promise.”

Neither of them says anything for a moment. Then, Sam sighs, scrubs a hand through his hair. “Seriously, after what happened the last time you trusted – ” He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “I don't like this, Dean.”

Dean shrugs, lets himself sink deeper into the chair. He stares at the blurry image of the souls on the table, rubs a hand over his forearm. “Yeah, well. It's a means to an end.”

>

Over the next few weeks, they slowly develop some sort of routine. Dean and Sam divide the research on Abaddon between themselves, trying to find a pattern and maybe preventing her next move. Sam drives out a few times to investigate something himself, and Dean goes with him once or twice but, for the most part, tries to keep himself on the sidelines. He can feel the power of the sigils itching under his skin to be set free, to destroy, and the more he pushes it down the worse, it gets. He rarely sleeps, and when he's awake, there's an ache his arms down to the bones, aching from the constant thrum of power, of angel juice, of whatever he’s becoming. Mostly, he stays in his room and sits on the floor while he goes through whatever news on Abaddon they have. It's easier than dealing with his and Sam's tense silences, and the disapproving look Sam throws him every time he has whiskey instead of dinner.

Cas is dividing his time between helping them and the angels, leaving a few times for the angel's base somewhere near Colorado Springs. He spends a lot of time on the phone, trading news about Metatron back and forth. The thought makes Dean feel guilty, but it's always easier when Cas is there. Cas doesn't pretend that everything is alright, but the tension just seems to lessen when he is here. The first time he comes into Dean's room, he has a stormy look on his face, and proclaims out of nowhere that he thinks he’s beginning to hate sandwiches, and how the last time he ate take-out it made him nauseous. So Dean drags himself up from the floor and towards the kitchen with a sigh, and proceeds to throw something together for dinner. It goes surprisingly well, mostly because Cas hovers at his shoulder the entire time and asks a lot of questions, thereby successfully preventing Dean from getting lost in his own thoughts. Which is a relief even though he doesn't deserve it, because his thoughts keep circling around what will happen when they do find Abaddon, and are drenched in his fear of what he is becoming. But when Cas is there, some of the weight is eased. Dean has damned himself, and he knows it, but in Cas presence he feels something almost like _safe_. Over the course of their cooking, Cas develops a weird fascination with the potato masher and Dean laughs for the first time in weeks.

The days when Dean can pull himself together enough to cook are the better ones. It gives his hands something to do, even if he sometimes has trouble hiding how they shake as bad as if he's in withdrawal. But when he joins him, it seems to help Cas forget about his worries for a while, too, and that is worth it. Cas is curious about everything, but also quick and vehement about what he likes and doesn't like. Cas tries some of Sam's grapefruit and makes such an utterly disgusted face, something warm unfurls in Dean's chest that he'd rather not examine. The days when he cooks are also better because the three of them can sit together and talk about something other than death and betrayal and looming threats. Dean knows things between him and Sam are not okay. But since it's all gonna end for him in a few weeks anyway, he’s at least got to try.

Cas sits down with him whenever they have the time and attempts to help him find the focus within himself to navigate whatever sense of Abaddon he has. He sits opposite Dean at one of the tables when the library is empty, touches Dean's temples with his fingertips, and tells Dean to clear his mind. The first time doesn't really go well. The touch of Cas' fingers feels too hot against Dean's skin, and his heart rate refuses to slow. As soon as he closes his eyes, all Dean is aware of is Cas' presence across from him. But over the next couple of tries, it gets easier. Dean listens to Cas' calm breathing and follows it down. The dark of the backs of his eyelids slowly transforms into vague shadows, then sharpens into glimpses of the place with the devil's trap floor and the storm clouds. Calling the power of Michael's grace up to him and forcing it to follow his will hurts like a son of a bitch. But the pain is easier to bear than the emptiness and the raw craving he feels when he has to push it down again and again.

By the third time they try, the disconnected glimpses finally fuse together. The threatening clouds at the horizon are the same, but now the devil's trap is broken, the scorpion split right through the middle. Dean is standing right on the cracks, dark spilling through them like smoke trapped under the earth. There are shadows moving in the corners of his vision, but like the clouds above they're moving too fast for his eyes to follow. One of the cracks he's standing one widens, flattening out like a path, a dark river, rising and swallowing him up. His heart is racing. From far away, he can hear his breath wheezing through his clenched teeth, Cas' voice saying, “Dean, slow down.” He's falling, falling through the dark into an even darker room, the ceiling low and flat and suffocating. And there she is, her eyes gleaming, burning, her wide lips stretched into a cruel smile. She's holding a soul between the curled fingers of one hand, scratching it with her nails, again and again, slowly turning its light into a swirling black.

Dean gasps and forces his eyes open, stares at Cas, disoriented. It takes him several seconds to coordinate his breathing into something more controlled, and to realize he's holding Cas' wrists in a painfully tight grip. He forces his shaking hands to let go, and Cas slowly removes his fingers from Dean's temples. “Are you okay?”

Dean draws a shuddering breath, rubs a hand over his eyes. When he opens them again, Cas is holding a glass of water out to him. He manages to swallow some of it, then sets the glass down on the table. He'd like to press its cool surface against his forehead, but his hands are still trembling.

“Dean? What did you see?”

Dean just shakes his head.

>

Three days later, he enters the library with a cup of coffee in his hand and from one moment to the next his vision slips and he feels pain explode in his knees. The dark river is stretching before him and it forms into a high building, races down its front, down to the foundations. He can't breathe. From far away he hears, “No, don't, don't touch him!” He's flying through the walls, black, white, red, and into a room crawling with forms that hold no shape, no meaning, up to the throne, and she's staring, she's staring at him, a word forming in her mind that folds his ribcage together effortlessly, like the wings of a butterfly. He's falling, he's falling deep, deep down.

Dean comes to kneeling on the ground, hunched over, scrabbling at his chest and gasping for breath. His head is pounding and his arms are on fire. “Dean?”

He lifts his head and Cas is crouched down in front of him, Sam hovering over them. They're both pale and staring at him in alarm. Dean takes in a shuddering breath and Cas reaches for him as if to steady him. Dean shakes his head, grits out, urgent, “Abaddon. I know where she is.”

An hour later, they're on the way to Cleveland, Ohio. It's a fifteen hour haul, and Sam was pretty insistent about taking the first turn driving. Dean was feeling keyed up but also still off-balance from what he'd seen, and finally just handed the keys over. Cas is sitting in the back. Neither of them speak. It was already pretty late when they headed out, but there was no question that they had to make it there as soon as they possibly could. Abaddon has been on the move constantly the last few weeks, and if she returns to Hell again Dean probably isn't going to be able to follow her. They have to do this now. Still, a heavy sense of dread combined with nervousness settles over the car, keeping them awake and caught up in their own thoughts.

Halfway there, they stop at a gas station so Sam can get them some bottled water, and so that Dean can take over driving. Cas shifts in his seat behind him and lays a hand softly on his shoulder. “Dean – ”

Dean sighs and moves away from the touch, hisses out a quiet, tense, “Don't, Cas. Just – don't.”

Cas makes a frustrated noise, but doesn't push the issue. Dean is quietly grateful for it, but doesn't say anything. He needs to stay focused, needs the tunnel vision so he doesn't falter, doesn't fail the mission. Doesn’t miss his shot at ending this. It's what the tells himself, mile after mile, while the horizon slowly lightens as the night fades away. He needs this so he won't hesitate. He needs this so he won't feel the fear.

When the hotel he'd seen comes into view around a corner, Dean stops the car in the shadows of a narrow, dilapidated bridge. Sam is immediately suspicious.

“What are you – ” Sam cuts himself off, his features darkening. “You want to charge in there alone, don't you? Really, Dean? What the hell is wrong with you? ”

Dean's hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Sam, listen – ”

But Sam talks over him, hissing, “No, you listen. If this is you making decisions and thinking you have to keep me safe again, then you can forget about it. We’re not doing this again.”

Dean sighs, “Sam, come on, that's not it.”

His brother doesn't give an inch. “I have no reason to believe that.”

Dean cringes, rubs at his forehead and stares at the dashboard. “Okay. But you're still not coming. Sam just think for a second,” he adds before Sam can protest again. “The last thing Abaddon needs is more leverage, and she already knows we're coming.”

There is silence for a moment. “How do you know?” Cas asks.

Dean shakes his head. “Because when I was – seeing her, or whatever,” he motions something vague with his hands, “She was looking straight at me. Or maybe not _me_ , but she knew. She knows we're here.”

For a moment, it’s silent in the car. Then Cas turns slightly towards Sam. “Sam, he's right.” He sounds regretful but resigned.

Sam blows out an explosive breath. “Okay, fine. But the minute we think something is going sideways, we're coming in after you.”

Dean grimaces. “I guess you'll know how it went down either way.”

He exits the car, takes the angel blade out of his duffle bag and shoves it up the sleeve on his right arm. By the time he slams the trunk shut again, Sam has moved back into the driver's seat. Dean doesn't look at either of them, just gently taps against the roof in passing and then moves through the shadows under the bridge toward his destination.

>

The parking lot is stacked full of cars, but the hotel itself appears completely empty. He walks slowly through the hallways at ground level, and it's as if the noise of the entire outside world is cut off. Instead, there's a pressure on his eardrums like there's a shockwave trapped inside the building. Scratching sounds come from inside the walls, and there's a whisper in the air like wailing, like cruel amusement. Dean follows his gut instincts down to the basement, where the electricity is out and the hallways are washed red from the emergency lights. One of the hallways has a busted vending machine and a few poker cards strewn across the floor, in another are five dead birds, their wings broken. But the others are completely empty. Judging from the outline of the building, he's pretty sure the basement shouldn't actually have that many corridors.

When corridor splits in front of him, he chooses the hallway to his right. It ends in a massive steel door, red paint scratched and peeling away. Dean lets the angel blade fall into his hand, slowly reaching for the door handle with the other. It feels icy under his touch, the edges too sharp. The contrasts between light and dark everywhere in here are like someone drew them with a pencil and a ruler. Dean is pretty sure he's got one foot in Hell right now. He closes his eyes for a moment and forces himself to breathe, then pushes the handle down.

Beyond is a vast room with a flat ceiling held up by massive columns. It looks vaguely like an underground parking lot, except the dimensions of the room seem to stretch endlessly right and left, disappearing into shadows. There are massive metal tables on the left, stained with dark fluids. On the other side are rows upon rows of high shelves, stacked with glass jars like the ones from the photograph. The souls inside are well on their way to turning black. From the corners of his eyes, Dean can make out movements from either side, though no one is there. He ignores it, doesn't let his gaze be drawn away by it. There's a slightly elevated area further back in the room. On it is a wine red leather couch and a low table, and there is Abaddon. She's sitting with one arm swung lazily over the back of the couch, smiling down at him. There's an empty glass jar on the table and two marbles that look like they have eyeballs inside. The eyes stare at Dean and roll slowly around the table as though they have a life of their own.

“I was wondering when you would finally show. I don't like to be kept waiting, Dean.”

The whisper in the air increases while she speaks, and the shadows swirl faster, press closer. Dean grips the angel blade tighter and takes another step into the room. His arms ache and his ears are ringing. It wells up inside him, the instinct to spring at Abaddon, to obliterate. Her mere presence sets his teeth on edge. The air in here is scorched, touched by Hell and drained of life, building up a suffocating prison around him, within him.

Abaddon's mouth turns down when Dean doesn't respond. “I liked you better the last time. Less glow, more bite.” She leans forward, smiling again. Her teeth are white needles in the gloom. “Let's see if we can't make you dance.”

She motions with one hand, and something shifts in the air. The swirling shadows twist and turn, taking form. Where the room was once empty, now it is full of blood hungry demons.

Power is vibrating through Dean's arms so fast he can't feel his finger anymore. He takes another step forward, and they're on him. He swings the blade and cuts through a few of them, tearing clear through their throats. They laugh. They look like they're possessing humans and yet not, their limbs too long and thin, mouths too wide, teeth too sharp. And beyond their maws, an abyss. Dean fights the ones that that come closest to him, but it's clear they’re just toying with him. Waiting. His vision is split between the demons in front of him and the flickering fires of the candles in the chapel. There is a drowning pulse in his head, growing louder and louder. The whisper from down below to allow his pain and fear to be washed away with the rising tide of Michael's grace. To let its light burn away all that's standing in his way. He's fighting for breath, vaguely aware that warm blood is running down his side. Demons are tearing at his clothes, holding him back. Abaddon has stepped down from her throne and is coming closer, the demons parting for her like the sea.

Her mouth moves but he can't hear anything but the droning pulse in his head, his vision obscured by blinding light. Dean realizes he's on his knees, can't feel his weapon in his hands. Abaddon's proximity is like smoke and ashes crawling into his throat. His heart is burning. Abaddon is holding him by the throat, the nails of her other hand scratching the skin under one of his eyes.

“Why don't you stay down here with us where you belong, little soldier.”

Something lurches in his chest and his breath catches in his throat. Dean raises his arms, despite the weight of the demons at his back and at his sides, despite the pain in his bones, and presses his palms against her temples.

She makes as if to recoil but is stuck. The fingers digging into his neck fall away as Abaddon is consumed by light from the inside out, her mouth stretched into a scream that makes the walls rattle around them. The light is blinding but he cannot close his eyes against it. The demons weight disappears from his back. His mind is empty. His heart is cold. The screaming grows louder as the demons surrounding him burn out, every single one. Caught in an exploding star, held down and lit up like fuel for a fire.

>

He's lying on his back on a cold hard floor. He's staring upwards, and it takes him a while to realize he's not staring at the sky, but at a painting. White clouds strewn over a dusted blue ceiling. There's a soft light behind him, but he cannot turn his head. His limbs feel heavy, useless. He doesn't mind. His mind is calm. He doesn't know how he could stand it before. The clouds move, he watches them. A moth flies past, seeking out the light. The floor is cold. He closes his eyes.

>

Dean wakes up in the bunker's infirmary. For a long moment, he just lies there, stares at the blank tiles. It all comes back then, the red corridors, Abaddon's smile. The demons' screams as the light swallowed them up. He heaves in a breath, shifts on the cot as nausea rolls around in his gut. The movement makes his side twinge in pain. There's bandages around his ribs. Slowly, his pushes himself up into a sitting position. There's a glass of water and some painkillers on the table at his side and he downs all of it at once, trying to chase the bitter taste out of his mouth. It doesn't really help. For a while, he just sits there and stares at his hands. The shirt and jacket he'd worn are nowhere to be seen, and the dark blue sigils on his forearms stand out in stark contrast to his pale skin.

He still remembers which of the writings in the Dei Ameth spell out the name. _Michael_. It was all there, that merciless wrath filling his mind until nothing was left. Dean flexes his fingers. They're still slightly numb. But the whispers are gone now. All he hears is the humming electricity of the overhead lamps, and all he feels is the slow beat of his heart and the weight of all he's done. The Archangel's wrath is gone, and it has taken the calm with it.

Dean drags himself into the bathroom, washes up as best as he can at the sink. The soap makes his scrapes and cuts sting, but he ignores it. He avoids meeting his own eyes in the mirror.

Sam and Cas are in the library when he enters. Sam is sitting at one of the tables while Cas is standing, leaning with his back against one of the stone pillars. They both simultaneously look up and stop talking when he enters. Dean tries not to interpret the look in their eyes as wariness. He stops a few feet in front of them, nervous and tense. Cas finally takes a step towards him. “How are you feeling?”

Immediately, the tension eases a bit. Dean sighs and leans with his hip against the table, drags a hand down his face. “Fan-frickin-tastic. How long was I out?”

Cas fidgets with the pen in his hand, a nervous gesture that still looks inexplicably strange on him. “The whole ride back and then an additional five hours.” He pauses. “We found you in a hallway that led to a dead-end. There was nothing else there.”

Dean nods, debates with himself over what to say when Sam interjects, “A shockwave went through that building and took out every single window. No one was in there,” he adds when Dean tenses, “No demons, no sign that they had even been there. There was just – nothing.”

He falls silent, stares at Dean in expectation, his expression a blend of barely contained anger and fear. Dean rubs at his forehead, stares at the floor. Cas moves as if to come closer, but chooses to remain where he is.

“It took them out,” Dean finally says, quiet. “Every single one, burned to nothing.”

For a moment, no one speaks. Then Sam blows out a breath and leans back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest. “Okay. So what's next?”

Dean looks at him and frowns. He can't read the expression on his brother's face. “So, we're one down, got one more to go. We gotta find Metatron, ASAP, before he – ”

Sam gets to his feet, his expression stormy. “Right. After you almost blow up a building, and are knocking unconscious for an entire day. Dean, we don’t even know what this is, or what it’s doing to you.”

Dean grits his teeth, “Sam – ”

But his brother cuts him off. “And you say this Grigori, whoever he is, can stop you if this gets out of control? How is he supposed to do that before it's too late? How do you even know he’ll show? And where’s the outcome where you don’t end up dead?”

Dean leans more heavily against the table, swallows his anger down with difficulty. “Because he's watching me. Trust me, if I become a threat, he'll stop me, alright? It’d be better that way,” he adds after a moment, even though saying it out loud makes his throat close up. He pauses, shifts his weight, and then forces himself to look back up at Sam and Cas’ disbelieving faces. “But until then, I gotta keep going. I have to finish this. No matter the outcome.”

He looks between the both of them, urging them to understand. Cas is avoiding his eyes and Sam is still staring at him, but his expression has completely closed off. His brother finally shakes his head. “I need some air.” He leaves the library and a few moments later, the door down to the garage opens and slams shut.

Dean sighs when he hears the door close. When he looks back up, Cas is finally meeting his eyes again, but there's something in them that Dean can't quite read. When Cas make a hesitant step towards him, his mouth opening as if he's just about to say something, Dean pushes away from the table and struggles for an excuse.

“I better – get some more sleep.” He turns before he can see Cas reaction and keeps his eyes trained firmly on the floor the entire way to his room.

>

Dean lies in his bed for a while, but every time consciousness is about to slip away, images of the bright light extinguishing the demons jolt him back awake. There's a phantom pain like a frostbite burn in his arms, he feels cold all over. He finally rolls back out of bed with a sigh. When he gets back to the library for a drink, Cas is already there, sitting in the semi-dark and apparently holding the Scotch hostage. Dean hesitates, but Cas has already spotted him, looks at him with bleary eyes but doesn't say anything. Dean walks over and flops down in the chair beside him, picks up a glass and the tumbler and serves himself a couple of generous fingers.

Cas is scowling down at the table. “Alcohol tastes disgusting, Dean.”

Dean snorts, downs half the glass in one go. It doesn't burn as good as he'd hoped. Cas frowns at his own almost empty glass in his hands, still looking almost angry, like the booze let him down. “I've found that sometimes the numbness wins out over its disturbing likeness to turpentine.”

Dean pauses, eyes Cas critically. “But drinking still isn't good for you, Cas.”

Cas stares at him while Dean fills his glass again. “That is astoundingly hypocritical of you, Dean.”

Dean huffs out a laugh, shakes his head. “Yeah, well, you know me.”

Cas falls silent for a moment. “Yes,” he finally says, his voice weird and soft. “I know you.”

There's a strange undercurrent in his tone, like he means something more than what is in his words. Dean risks a glance at him, clears his throat awkwardly. “So, uh, what's going on? Something on your mind?”

Cas sighs, sets his glass down on the table and rests his hands in his lap. “Hannah called me an hour ago. Malachi and Bartholomew, the leaders of the two major competing factions, wiped each other out. The angels that were under their command, too. We think Metatron was playing them against one another.”

Dean freezes and stares at Cas, takes in the slump of his shoulders and the guilty twist of his mouth. “Cas,” he sets his glass down and turns towards Cas in his seat. “Shit man, I'm sorry.”

Cas just nods, blows a breath out through his nose. His voice is rough when he says, “I had hoped we could end this war in a diplomatic way. I suppose that was very naive of me.”

Dean makes a frustrated noise, takes Cas' glass and sets it down further away from him. “No Cas, come on, you can't think that way. The fact that you still care, that you still try, even with people, angels, who might not deserve it – that's not a bad thing.”

Cas doesn't look at Dean during his little speech, but some tension seems drain out of his shoulders. Dean knocks back the rest of what's in his glass, though mostly just to give his hands something to do. Cas is still quiet, but now he looks more thoughtful than depressed. Dean takes a breath, “Apart from – all of that,” he makes a vague motion with his hand, “Are you, I mean – okay?”

Cas thinks for a moment. “I am worried about you, Dean.”

Dean groans, drags a hand down his face in frustration. “I was asking about _you_ , Cas.”

Cas finally lifts his glazed over eyes from the table to frown at him. “Why should these two things be mutually exclusive? That makes no sense, Dean.” Dean glares at him. Cas huffs out a breath and rolls his eyes. “Fine. I guess, then, I'll go with more or less okay. Does that suffice?” He's staring at Dean, deadpan delivery, but Dean can see the corners of his mouth twitch.

Dean growls in exaggerated aggravation and reaches for the tumbler again, “I give up.”

Now Cas is smirking in earnest, “You shouldn't drink, Dean, it's not good for you.”

Dean tries to fight down a smile of his own and loses, “Shut up, Cas.”

>

Cas ends up falling asleep on Dean's shoulder, and Dean more or less carries him out of the library, one of Cas' arms slung over his shoulder. He's already in the hallway when he realizes that the light isn't on and that he isn't sure which room Cas has been sleeping in. The only door that's open is the one to his own room. Dean sighs, shoulders his way inside, and lays Cas down on his own bed. It's not like he was gonna get any sleep tonight anyway. Cas curls up on his side as soon as his head hits the pillow, and for a moment Dean just stands there and stares, totally at a loss. He scrubs a hand over his jaw and digs some ibuprofen out of the closet over the sink, sets it down at the nightstand with a glass of water. Then he leaves before he can think any more about what he just did.

Dean sits back down at the library table, goes again over everything they have on Metatron so far. Punishing the angels and undermining their resistance seem to be straight-forward enough. But there are other things that don't add up.

The reapers have been in contact with the angels ever since Heaven was closed for business, which, apparently, also means human souls can no longer enter. But if Heaven usually gains its power through the souls, it'd make no sense for Metatron to keep them out. If he had a way to do it without opening Heaven for the angels again, why hasn't he done it already? The only other explanation is he doesn't need them because the source of his power comes from somewhere else, which just can't be good.

Dean thumbs through some pages of the more obscure lore without really knowing what he's looking for. He falls asleep on a page completely covered in strange geometric figures.

He's back on that stone floor, but this time the light behind him has dimmed. The moth is fluttering above him, distressed, trapped. There's a droning sound from below him, bending the walls and making mortar fall down from the ceiling. The painted white clouds above him have bunched up and darkened against the sky, the calm before a storm. Fear clenches around his heart as he stares upwards. He struggles to turn around, turn towards the light, while a drum adds to the deafening roar from below, a deep rumble reverberating, against enclosing walls. He manages to lie on his side, but then his strength leaves him. The moth falls down to the floor beside him, drained of life.

Dean jerks awake with a gasp, something slips out from under his elbow and crashes to the floor. He stares in disorientation at the table in front of him, terror coursing through him, though he has no idea why. He drags in a shuddering breath and rubs at his eyes. “Hello, Dean.”

He looks up, and Cas is just coming around the table, two cups of coffee in his hands. Cas pauses when he sees the book and the papers on the floor and frowns, “Are you alright?”

Dean bends down and picks them up, chucks them back on the table and grimaces, “Just peachy, Cas. How 'bout you, you feeling better?”

Cas hesitates, sets one of the mugs down near Dean and keeps the other in his hand. Dean belatedly remembers Cas slept in his bed last night, and he picks the coffee up and takes a sip although it's still too hot.

“Yes, a bit. Thank you, Dean.”

Cas is cradling his mug with nervous fingers, his gaze directed at some far point above Dean's shoulder. Dean coughs awkwardly, “Yeah, well. Good.” He takes another sip of his coffee and rearranges the papers in front of him.

Cas shifts on his feet, then holds something out to Dean. “This was stuck to the fridge.”

Dean looks up and frowns, takes the piece of paper out of Cas' hand. It's Sam's handwriting, says they got a call about something going down one state over and that he'll be back in a couple of days. Dean sighs, lets the paper fall onto the table.

Cas pulls a chair out and sits down. “He just needs time, Dean.”

Dean rests his head in his hands for a moment, forces out a quiet, “Yeah.” He sighs, leans back in his chair. “So, any idea how Metatron is doing all his party tricks without the souls as fuel?”

Cas shifts the mug in his hands, looks thoughtfully at the table. “I assume he has found a way to harness the power of the angel tablet. He was the scribe, after all.”

Dean blows out a breath, pushes the book in front of him further away. “Fantastic. What do you think his endgame is?”

Cas looks at him. “Don't you think he already has everything he needs?”

Dean worries at his lip, stares down at the wood pattern of the table. “I don't know. Just a feeling.” He rubs a hand over his left forearm absently. There’s an ache spreading through it, and he can’t even be sure he isn’t imagining it. Every time he catches sight of the dark blue lines, he gets the sinking feeling they're burrowing deeper into his skin, growing roots. He tugs his sleeves down further.

When Dean looks back up, Cas’ gaze is transfixed on the far wall, his expression dark and hands curled into fists in his lap. “This shouldn't be your responsibility, Dean.” He sounds angry, almost bitter.

Dean leans forward in his seat. “Cas – ”

Cas interrupts him, his features hardened into a scowl, “No, Dean. This happened because of a mistake _I_ made, I never meant to pull you into this. And now…There’s barely anything I can do to help fix it.”

Dean shakes his head. “Cas, you _are_ helping, come on, man. Even if you had your grace, there's nothing more you could do that you aren't already doing. You said so yourself.”

Cas' jaw tenses and he pushes away from the table, turns his back to Dean, but just stands there, his hands trembling slightly where they're clenched into fists. Dean sighs, his own hands twitching on the table. He wants to walk over and press a palm against Cas' back, soothe the tensed muscles there. He leans back in his chair and clenches his jaw, frustrated and helpless.

“I’m scared, Dean,” Cas suddenly says, his voice rough and uncertain.

Dean's throat closes up, and he has to swallow before he can answer. “It's okay, Cas. I promise you we'll stop him. We'll figure it out.”

Cas' shoulders don't relax, and he doesn't answer. A dull pain spreads through the space behind Dean's ribs and he searches desperately for something else to say. When he comes up short, he pushes away from the table, motions behind himself even though Cas is still turned away. “I'll just, I'm gonna go make some coffee.” When Cas still doesn't react, Dean leaves, telling himself that Cas probably needs some space.

Dean is on autopilot, moving through the kitchen, cleaning out the coffee pot so he can make fresh, ignoring the steam still rising from the brew he pours into the sink. He leans with his arms braced against the counter and concentrates on the sputtering of the machine, stares at its smooth black surface so he won't think about the trembling in Cas' hands.

>

Cas is still in the library when Dean comes back, having taken longer in the kitchen than he necessarily would have needed to. He sits back down, winces slightly when the movement pulls at the stitches in his side. The painkillers from yesterday have worn off by now, and the bruises on his shoulder and back throb in a dull ache. Cas is flipping through the lore book that had fallen down when Dean had started awake.

Dean hesitates, then says, “I think we should summon Tamiel.” Cas finally looks up and meets Dean's eyes. He looks pale but slightly less tense than earlier. “He seemed to know a lot about what was going on when we had our little meet cute. Maybe he can tell us something about Metatron that we overlooked.”

Cas frowns, but it looks more pensive than critical. “Don't you think he would have told you if he did?”

“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. But maybe he got some new info. He told me he can't seek humans out directly unless it's to kill them. They have to find him or summon him. So if he'd found something, like a way into Heaven, he wouldn't be able to just tell us.”

Cas appears to mull this over for a moment. “Didn't you say he was watching you?”

Dean shakes his head, “Yeah, but not like _watching me_ watching me. He knows what I’m doing, but that's it.”

Cas shifts in his chair, stares at the research spread out before him. “And you want to summon him here? Do you really think that's safe?”

Dean cringes, guilt rising up his throat. “Yeah, you're right. I'll find some place. Isolated, far enough away from here. ” Cas' features have softened with empathy when Dean looks up at him again.

Dean coughs, takes a sip of his tepid coffee. “So, we doing this?”

>

Cas determines pretty quickly that they'll need myrrh, pure quartz, holy water and a few drops of human blood for the incantation. It's finding an isolated location to do the summoning that takes the most time.

“Grigori are usually associated with the four quarters of north, east, south and west, as well as the four elements, though that's less of an issue. As long as we're outside and not standing on concrete, it should be enough. They're also linked to every solstice and equinox.”

Dean looks up from where he's been studying their maps of the surrounding areas and checking Google Earth. “So when's it gotta go down?”

Cas hesitates for a moment, then says, “Sunrise.”

Dean sighs. “Well, we're way past that one. Gonna have to wait until tomorrow.” He turns the laptop so Cas can see the screen. “Think that'll work?”

It's an empty stretch of earth a couple miles east where a farm house used to stand in the middle of a field. Cas squints at the screen. “I think so, yes.”

They hit the bunker's supply room next, and for several minutes, Dean just leans against one of the shelves and watches as Cas critically examines their assortment of gemstones and herbs. He gets lost inside his own head for a while, debating with himself whether to shoot Sam a text telling him what they're up to or just leaving it. It's not like he can blame Sam, after everything. Or maybe it's just that he's a coward and wants to avoid having another argument.

“Cas?” he asks, “What do you know about the Watchers? Or Grigori, whatever.”

Cas pauses, though he doesn't look away from the crystal he's holding carefully between two fingertips. “They were created to be your guardians and protect you from evil. Everything and everyone that posed a significant enough threat to humanity would create a,” he seems to search for the right word for a moment, “ _dissonance_ that they would hear and that would force them into action.”

Cas puts the crystal down and leans back where he's crouched on the floor. “They were also said to be the angels closest to humans by nature. The only ones who really understood what it meant to be human. They didn't mind being stationed on Earth because they felt comfortable here.” He falls silent for a moment, his expression grave. “Which ultimately led to Heaven casting them out, because it was determined they had become _too_ human. They were hunted. I wasn't aware there were any survivors until now.”

Cas continues rummaging through the drawer, eyes firmly turned down. Dean rubs at his neck awkwardly, aware of the tension in the room but at a loss at how to handle it. He finally decides to just go with his gut, “Come on, we have what we need and we still got a couple hours left. Let's go out, I could use a drink.”

Cas pushes the drawer shut and turns to face Dean, squinting in confusion. “What could possibly be the different between having a drink here and having one in a bar?” But he's already pushing himself upright, moving to follow Dean.

Dean smiles at him. “Trust me, Cas. There’s a big difference.”

>

The Impala is still parked outside, so Sam must have taken one of their spares from the garage. Dean finally decides to call him, but it goes straight to voicemail. That’s never good. He swallows down the growing concern, gets behind the wheel.

Cas looks calmer now, the orange glow of the sunset throwing his features into stark contrast. They don't talk during the short drive, but it's a companionable silence. Dean looks over to Cas a few times, how the wind from the half open window ruffles his hair, and the curious way he watches the landscape pass them by. No matter how long he's been down here, no matter how many times they travel this stretch of highway, he still seems mesmerized by everything he sees. Cas looks over to him when he notices Dean watching and Dean awkwardly clears his throat, tries to concentrate on the road.

At the bar, he orders a couple of beers and a plate of nachos. Dean puts the plate in front of Cas, and though Cas is hesitant at first, he seems to enjoy them. He eats slowly, methodically, showing the food the same level of care he would give to something precious.

“Is this the difference you meant, Dean? Nachos?” He states his question in such a serious voice that Dean isn't sure if Cas is making fun of him or not.

Dean shakes his head and has to laugh. “Well, it's something, right?” He takes a sip of his beer and steals some of the nachos with is other hand. Cas doesn't seem to mind.

The first hour they're there, Dean is vigilant, keeping an eye on the door. But no one approaches them or even looks in their direction. The demons who were working for Abaddon are probably too busy playing hide and seek with Crowley and his pals. If there are even many of them left. Dean has no idea how many he burned out of existence back in that hotel.

He rubs a hand over the jacket covering his arms, takes a longer swallow of his beer. Tamiel's words about his limited time cross his mind. The beer tastes bitter in his mouth.

“I missed this,” Cas says, startling Dean out of his thoughts. Cas is holding a nacho between his fingertips, staring at it like it holds all the secrets to the universe. For all Dean knows, it probably does. The thought makes Dean smile a bit.

“Missed what? Food?”

Cas nods. “Yes.” He puts the nacho in his mouth, chews, looks out the window. “Among other things.” He doesn't continue, and there's a strange tone to his words that stops Dean from questioning it.

After Cas finishes his nachos, they both drink for a while in silence. It's long since gotten dark outside, and Cas is still looking out the window when he asks, “Can we drive out there right now?”

Dean stops fiddling with the label on his bottle and looks up in surprise. “You mean the field? Why? It won't be sunrise for like another six hours.” Cas meets his gaze, and his face looks calm, but there's something intense in his eyes that makes Dean freeze.

“Uhm. Okay,” he says, still uncertain, but unable to say no.

Cas just nods. “Good,” he gets up to move out of the booth. Dean stares at the empty space for a moment, feeling like he hasn't quite caught up with the sudden development. Belatedly, he realizes he didn't even ask what Cas is going to do there in the middle of the night. He's not even sure he can find it in the dark, even with the directions from Google. But Cas is already at the door, and so Dean just gets up and makes his way to the counter to pay before he follows him out into the dark.

>

They find the field easier than Dean had expected, mostly because Cas has a frankly inhuman sense of direction. It's also not quite as dark as Dean had thought, the night sky is clear and this far away from the city, the stars cast a glow across the landscape.

He kills the engine when the bumpy road they've been following ends several feet away from the stretch of flat land they had chosen for the ritual. Apart from a few insects chirping outside, it’s quiet once the rumble of the car has fallen away. “So, uh,” he clears his throat, feeling nervous despite himself. “What now?”

For a long moment, Cas doesn't answer. He's staring out the windshield into the night. Dean can barely make out his face in the dark. Cas finally shakes his head, shifts in his seat like he's forcefully bringing himself back into the present. “I don't know,” he says, his voice rough and strangely subdued. “I just wanted to be here.”

Dean sighs, feels a mixture of exasperation and fondness spread through him. He pushes his door open. “Come on. We might as well enjoy the fresh air while we’re here.” He gets out and walks around to the front of the car to lean against the hood.

Cas follows him, mimics Dean's posture. He stares at the dark fields ahead of them while Dean tips his head back to look up at the stars.

“We used to do that a lot when we were kids,” Dean says after a moment. From the corners of his vision, he sees Cas lift his head and look at him. “Sit out on the hood and just look up at the stars. We barely knew what any of the constellations were called, so I kind of just made up names. I think Sam was disappointed when he found out none of them were actually real.” He chuckles, though the memory gives rise to sadness. Cas doesn't say anything, but Dean has the feeling he's listening intensely. For what, he isn't sure.

Cas moves to look up as well, his change in position making his shoulder brush against Dean's. The night is cold, but feels less so with Cas radiating warmth beside him. “It doesn't look like this,” Cas finally says, “from Heaven. I didn't know.”

He sounds regretful, the words weighted down with meaning. Dean wants to ask if Cas knows now, but he has the strangest feeling he doesn’t understand the implications of what exactly he would be asking. Of what it would mean. So he says nothing, but doesn't move away.

>

Dean falls asleep in the passenger seat for a while, head leaning against the window and a balled up shirt from the trunk stuffed between his shoulder and the door. Cas had revealed he'd taken the ingredients for the ritual with them when they left for the bar, and said he would wake Dean at sunrise. Dean was hesitant at first, but Cas seemed insistent.

It still takes a while for Dean to fall asleep. Every time he closes his eyes, he thinks there's something moving in the shadows. He's actually surprised when Cas shakes his shoulder and he opens his eyes to see the first glimpses of light on the horizon. He scrubs a hand over his eyes, then pushes his door open and follows Cas over to the dried-up patch of earth cast in the hazy blue glow of dawn.

Cas has put a ring of holy oil down in one corner, drawn the sigils for the incantation directly into the ground with a stick. Candles are placed in each corner, the bowl with the ingredients in the middle. Cas crouches down in front of it, lighter in his hand and eyes on the horizon where the sky is slowly turning to burning orange. “Ready?” he asks, without looking up at Dean.

Dean widens his stance, takes a breath. “Yeah. Let’s get this done.”

The light crawls up the field and then hits the ground around them, sharpening every edge and deepening every contrast. Cas strikes a match and lets it fall into the bowl, mutters the Enochian spell in a low, flat voice, then stands up quickly. Dean tenses his back, tries to keep an eye on all four corners at once. The sun climbs higher. Nothing happens.

Cas blows out a breath. “It didn't work.” He sounds grave, his face troubled when Dean looks at him.

“You think we missed a step?” Dean asks, even though he's pretty sure that’s not what’s happening here. His pulse quickens, a heavy sense of dread spreading through him.

Cas shakes his head, his gaze trained at the bowl to their feet. His jaw is set, tense. “I don't know.”

Dean shifts his weight, then shakes his head and flexes his hands, feeling jittery. “Let's just drive back. I got a bad feeling about this, man.”

Cas nods without looking at Dean, kneels down to blow out the candles. Dean takes the bowl and starts to walk back towards the car. He's so wrapped up in his own thoughts that it takes several moments for him to realize that Cas isn't following him. He stops and turns, frowns in confusion. Cas is still standing there on that empty stretch of land, his back turned to Dean and his hands curled into fists. The sun is still low, and Cas' body is throwing a long and thin shadow across the ground.

Dean walks back a couple of feet. “Cas?”

Cas' back tenses for a moment, then his shoulders slump. He turns around and then walks right past Dean, avoiding his eyes and not saying a word. Dean watches him go, certain he just missed something, but he’s got no clue what it was.

Cas is already in the car when Dean throws the bowl in the trunk and then walks around to the driver's side. He sits down and starts the engine, turns in his seat to look behind them while he turns the car around.

“You okay, man?” Dean looks over to Cas once they're mobile, putting that patch of land behind them.

Cas is gritting his teeth, his hands are gripping his knees so tightly his knuckles are turning white. “Please, just drive.” Dean watches him in growing concern but doesn't ask again.

Dean tries calling Sam once they're back out on the main road, but it goes straight to voicemail again. He stuffs the phone back into his pocket with a curse. “I can't reach Sam. You heard from him at all?”

There's a long moment of complete silence from Cas. “Sam is on his way back,” he finally says, his voice flat and expressionless. Dean looks away from the road to shoot Cas another confused glance.

“Okay,” he replies, at length. “That's. Good.” Cas doesn't react and doesn't meet Dean's eyes. ”Cas, you know this isn't your fault, right? Even if you – ”

Cas interrupts him with a growl, “Please, Dean, I can't talk to you right now.” He sounds pained, his voice a strange blend of anger and pleading. Dean's words die in his throat. His chest feels weighted down, and he turns his eyes back to the road. The sky above them fills with clouds as they drive, the color of lead and rolling high.

Cas gets out of the car as soon as it stops. Dean follows him down into the library, dumps the bag with the bowl and the leftover ingredients on the table. He starts unpacking it, eyeing Cas where he stands just a few feet away from him, scowling down at some patch on the floor. Dean stops rummaging around in the bag and straightens with a sigh, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Come on, man, talk to me.”

Cas still isn't meeting his eyes, the line of his shoulders is tense. He looks like he's fighting with himself. “Dean – ”

He's interrupted by the front door opening and then closing with a bang, footsteps echoing down the stairs and through the corridor. Dean makes a frustrated noise and turns towards the hallway. “Finally, I've been trying to reach – ”

Sam appears in the doorway to the library and then stops, just stands there. He has a bag over one shoulder and is pale, his clothes are wrinkled like he's been sleeping in them. Dean starts forward and then freezes, arms falling away from his chest and to his sides. There's a ringing sound in his ears and he feels like he can't breathe. Clutched in Sam's left hand and thrown half into shadow by the doorway is Tamiel's sword.


	3. HAND

 

 

Dean barely gets the words out through the sudden clench in his throat.

“Sam, what – ”

Sam squares his shoulders and takes a step into the room. His face is blank, but there's a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I had to, Dean.”

Dean can feel himself getting light-headed with how fast he's breathing, with how hard his heart is beating against his ribcage. “Sammy, what did you do?” he asks, panic in his voice, even though deep down, he already knows the answer.

Sam takes a breath. His eyes look dry but red-rimmed. “I was _not_ going to watch you burn yourself out over this, Dean. I was _not_ going to leave some guy out there who could and would kill you the moment he thinks you’ve become a threat.” Sam pauses. Dean is frozen to the spot, mute, the pounding of his heart filling his ears. “Crowley owed us for Abaddon. So I had him hunt Tamiel down. He refused to take the sigils off of you, and I – ” Sam swallows, falls silent.

Dean turns and leans heavily over the table, eyes squeezed shut and arms trembling where they're holding up his weight. He draws in a shuddering breath.

“Dean, we'll find some other way to get rid of them, but I won't – ”

Dean pushes away from the table, seething with rage. “Damnit Sam, this isn't just about us! You said that yourself, and you were _right_ , we can't just – ”

Sam inhales sharply, looks Dean square in the eyes. “I don't care! I'm sick of this, Dean, the sacrifices, and the lying. It’s pointless! I just want it to be over!” His shoulders are quivering once he stops shouting, his eyes wet and angry.

The fight drains out of Dean and he drags a shaking hand down his face. There's a shuffling noise to his right, and he dazedly remembers that Cas is there, too. Cas is staring at the far wall when Dean turns towards him, his jaw bunched up with tension. Something horrible coils in Dean’s gut.

“Did you – did you know about this?”

Cas finally looks at him, his eyes sad and raw with guilt. “I – I gave him Tamiel's name.” His voice is raw, guilty. Dean sucks in a breath, but the oxygen just won’t reach his lungs. His jaw hurts, and he belatedly realizes it's because he's been grinding his teeth.

Without another word, he turns and walks away.

>

Dean gets into the car and drives, letting the road take hold of his mind. A storm is brewing on horizon, but he doesn't turn around. He does ease off the gas though, and is surprised when he realizes he's driven back to the field.

Dean hesitates, then slows the car down and steers it towards the dusty excuse for a road, follows it until the end. For a long moment, Dean just sits there and listens to the ticking of the engine as it cools. But inevitably, everything that happened back at the Bunker, everything that happened right here, crawls its way back to the forefront of his mind. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe through it. In the dark, he sees Abaddon's knowing smile, the deceitful calm that filled him as he burned her out. It was Michael's grace, and yet it wasn’t. He was doing the right thing, and yet he wasn’t.

All their words are in his head at once, all the yeses and no’s, the rights and wrongs, forming a droning sea of gray. He beats a fist against the steering wheel, hot anger warring with the terror of feeling absolutely lost. The dark sky overhead finally breaks, rain pelting against the windshield. On a sudden impulse, he opens his door and steps outside to lean against the hood like he did last night. Only this time, he doesn't look up at the sky but closes his eyes and leans heavily against the car, water sliding down his face and soaking his clothes. He lets it. Lets the anger and the pain and the despair barrel through him, endures the sting of the icy rain and grips the front of the Impala so tightly the bones in his fingers hurt. Thunder rolls over him, but behind his eyes the maelstrom of images and sounds finally fades and ebbs away.

When he finally opens his eyes again, he has to blink the water away to see. Dean drags a hand over his eyes, exhales and lets go of the car. His arms ache, the clamor inside him urging to be given a target to tear down into the abyss with him. But inside, he feels more at peace than he has in a long time, and it wins out over the desire to lash out and lose himself. He's soaked to his skin in cold water, and vaguely aware he's shivering. Thunder still sounds above, but now it doesn't set him on edge. Dean remains standing there a few more minutes, just allowing himself a moment to breathe. Then he pushes away from the car, digs some dry clothes out of the trunk that smell faintly of rock salt, and then gets in the back to change before he ruins the leather.

He drives back slowly, and by the time he pulls up at the bunker the rain has stopped, but the sky remains a dreary overcast. After a few minutes of sitting in the silence of the car, the front door opens, and then Sam is opening the passenger door and sitting down next to him. He still looks rattled and like he needs a good night's sleep, but less tense than earlier. Neither of them says anything at first, but it's nothing like the tense and heavy silences that filled the weeks before. They're still not really okay either, but now that they've both said what they were actually thinking, strangely it feels easier to bear.

Dean lets his head fall back against the seat with a sigh. “Do you think we're gonna be able to – fix all of this?” He makes a vague motion at nothing in particular, trusting that Sam will get what he means.

He hears Sam draw in a slow breath beside him. “With time, yeah, I guess.”

Dean swallows. “Yeah,” he says, quietly.

Time. The one thing they barely ever have. It's a sad thought, but under it, he also feels a soft glimmer of hope, and he holds onto that.

“Hey, uh,” Sam clears his throat, “I was thinking about driving into town, get some supplies.”

Dean looks at him, hears the request for some distraction in his brother's voice. He digs his keys out of his pocket, throws them over to Sam. “Sure.”

He takes the wet clothes out of the back and walks back towards the bunker as Sam drives away. When he walks past the library. Tamiel's sword is still lying on one of the tables. Cas is nowhere to be seen. Dean doesn't feel like he should be anywhere near the sword, and so he just focuses on getting his clothes in the washer and then taking a long, hot shower.

By the time he gets out he feels drowsy and exhausted, but at least he's not shivering anymore. He goes to his room to change into some fresh clothes, and then sits down on his bed and rubs tiredly at his face. He didn't pull his sleeves down when he put on the green flannel, and the blue lines stand out against his skin. He stares at the sigil of the Keystone, the Enochian that reads 'wrath', and has to suppress a shudder.

There's tentative knock on his door. Dean can guess who it is, and he doesn't know if he's ready for this conversation. But he just shifts on the bed and calls out a rough and tired, “Yeah?” A beat, and then Cas opens the door, comes into Dean's room and closes it behind himself again. He stops a few feet away from where Dean's sitting, flexing the fingers of one hand in a clear sign of nerves.

“Dean, I'm sorry.”

Dean rubs at his forehead, sighs. “I know, Cas. I know why you – ” He cuts himself off, takes a breath and then fixes Cas with a hard stare. “No, actually, I don't know.” Cas flinches, shifts on his feet and opens his mouth as if to say something, but Dean plows on before the courage leaves him again. “I get the wanting to kick Metatron’s ass, I get the helping the angels and saving the world, but what do you want with _me_?!” His heart is racing and his chest is heaving by the time he's done. Cas is staring at him with wide eyes, the color drained from his face.

“Dean, what are you talking about?”

Dean huffs out a laugh without humor, moves his head away to stare at the wall and hisses out through clenched teeth, “I said yes because I was done. Because I didn't want to feel another damn thing. I could have burned everything down and wouldn't have cared. And now I – ” He balls his hands into fists, releases them again. He can barely get the words out through the painful clench of his throat. “Now it's. Different. But it doesn't change what I am.” Dean stops talking and fights to just breathe, a ringing in his ears and a tremble in his hands no matter how hard he tries to keep them still.

There's a long stretch of silence from Cas, and then he says, “You're someone that I missed.”

There's the quiet sound of footsteps and the rustle of fabric, and then the bed dips beside Dean. He squeezes his eyes shut, his whole body one line of tension.

“I missed you,” Cas says, his voice rough and brittle. “When I was on the road. When I was alone. When I was in a room full of people - angels. When I was standing with Daniel at the river. I missed _you_.”

Dean sucks in a breath, finally turns around to look at Cas, who is watching Dean openly, his expression soft and sad. Dean's eyes feel itchy and hot, his voice sounds wrecked when he says, “Cas, we can't. We shouldn't.”

Cas just looks at him, is quiet for a moment. “You're afraid of this,” he finally says, but he doesn't sound judgmental. Dean huffs out a watery laugh, rubs at the ache in the middle of his chest and stares at his knees. “Do you think I'm not?” Cas adds.

The uncertainty is evident on Cas' face when Dean looks at him again, but he's also smiling faintly. Dean's skin is tingling. His hands are so empty. He leans forward, rests his forehead against Cas' and closes his eyes. Cas goes utterly still under the touch. Dean can feel his soft breath on his face.

“Yeah,” he says, shivers when Cas sucks in a surprised gasp of air. Fear clutches at his insides, but he forces down the urge to turn away and flee from this. “Okay.”

>

When Dean finally moves away and hesitantly meets Cas' gaze, Cas is watching him with something like wonder in his eyes. It's definitely more than Dean feels he can take at the moment, so he looks at his knees again, rubs a hand down his thigh. He clears his throat, rubs at his eyes. “We, uh. Sam should be back by now. If we're really gonna take out Metatron, we better work out some sort of plan.”

It's probably not what he should be saying. He doesn't know what he should be saying. Cas must understand though, because he just nods and gets to his feet, his shoulder brushing against Dean's. Dean takes a deep breath, then follows him out of the door and back to the library. Sam is sitting at a table, brooding over his laptop, but looks up when Dean and Cas enter. Dean comes to stand in front of the sword, still lying diagonally across the tabletop. Cas walks around him, takes a seat at Dean's right and opposite of Sam. Dean remains standing, staring at the sword and rubbing a hand absently over one arm. He forces himself out of his thoughts with some effort, straightens his back and looks between his brother and Cas.

“So, if we're doing this, we're doing it together. But I gotta be able to trust that you'll let me do what I have to when the time comes.” He waits for their reluctant nods, figures that's probably the best he's gonna get right now. “So, next thing, we need to find a way into Heaven. If the guy's been on Earth, then there's gotta be some kind of a, uh, stairway to Heaven.”

Sam worries at the edge of the file in front of him. “Wouldn't it be easier to strike the next time he's, you know, on planet?”

Dean shakes his head, “The timeframe is too short and it's too risky. With all the stunts he's pulled, every time he's on the ground, innocent people get caught in the crossfire. I’m not gonna let that happen again.”

Sam swallows, his gaze traveling from Dean's face to his arms and back up. “And you think you can get into Heaven?”

Dean nods. “I think so, yeah.” Whether he'll make it out is another question entirely.

Sam's face hardens, he leans forward in his chair. “Okay, but if you’re gonna do this – take the sword with you.”

Dean blinks at him in confusion. “Sam, it was _his_ sword, I don't think – ”

But Sam is shaking his head. “You said Tamiel told you he wasn't strong enough to take on Metatron himself, but that he'd be able to kill you. The sword might be powerful on its own, and you're gonna need all the extra juice you can get.”

Dean looks down at the sword, feels his guts twist. But he forces himself to breathe through it. “Yeah okay, fine.”

Sam leans back in his seat, turns to Cas. “So, stairway to Heaven. What do you got? ”

Cas shakes his head, looking grave. “As far as I know, the angels are still searching.. The problem is that the way a door upstairs would – ” he struggles to find the right word for a moment, “ _sound_ , it wouldn't be distinguishable from the traps Metatron's laid out. And – ” He cuts himself off, makes a frustrated sound. “I am no longer an angel. Hannah still trusts me, but she might keep information from me if she deems it necessary for the safety of those under her command.”

There's a moment of silence while Sam and Dean mull his over. Sam finally clears his throat. “Okay, so. We’ll find it ourselves.”

>

What follows are days upon days of late nights, little to no sleep, too much coffee and endless brooding over maps, news and police reports, and the odd intel from Hannah. Metatron pops up several times, there and gone again. It’s always the same. He appears as a beggar, performs 'miracles', and people flock to him in awe. It's when a man gets beaten to death by an angry mob that believes Metatron their savior that Dean has to shove the laptop away and go down to the shooting range for about three hours. He stops emptying clips into their target dummies after a while and then just sits on the cold floor with his back up against the wall.

Cas finds at some point, but he doesn't say anything, just sits down next to Dean and waits with him until Dean's breathing calms down again. He's sitting close enough that Dean can feel his body heat, but not close enough to touch. Aside from the fact that they're constantly strung-out and focused on other things, they've barely touched each other since their talk in Dean's room. Dean sometimes catches Cas looking at him, and once or twice Cas has run a comforting hand down Dean's tense back when they're alone for a moment, but that's it. Every time Dean thinks about it, longing rises up in him, but hesitation and lingering fear always win out before he can reach out. Cas seems equally uncertain, his hands light on Dean's back and his eyes full of questions.

Sam sometimes looks between the two of them speculatively, but hasn't said anything yet. He's mostly occupied with trying to connect the places Metatron has shown his ugly mug so far – six times in the States, once in Hawaii, once in India, and twice in Italy – with some of the more general omens and disturbances they've found through news outlets and weather reports.

The problem is they don't know if Metatron's world tour means there are several doors leading back to Heaven, or if it’s just one very conveniently mobile door. Cas thinks the moving door theory is more likely to be correct, since everything that was stable would not only have to be guarded, but would also attract more attention.

“It has to be a spell,” he says, staring down at the map where they've marked the locations they have so far. “That way he could open it anywhere he wanted and shut it behind him. Secure it so that no one would be able to follow without the right spell.”

Dean is brooding over the police records of some herbal shop owner named Ian having been stabbed to death three days prior, when Sam sucks in a breath. “You gotta see this.”

He turns the laptop around for Dean and Cas to see, hits the play button on what looks like a video file from a security camera feed. There's some static, and then it shows two figures dragging a third one into an alley and a fight breaking out. Dean doesn't recognize the first two, a scrawny man in a dark coat and a dark-skinned woman wearing an expensive looking office suit. But the third one makes Dean tense, immediately recognizing Gadreel. He manages to take out his attackers, but is clearly injured in the process. The video cuts out as he disappears into the dark of the alley.

Sam seems just as tense as Dean feels when he looks up, but it's Cas who speaks up first. “I don't think those were angels under Hannah's command.”

Sam turns the laptop back towards himself and frowns at Cas. “You mean they were Metatron’s? But then why would they attack him? You said Hannah and the rest angels were after him because he was helping Metatron.”

Cas is leaning back in his chair, looking pensive. “Yes, but Gadreel disappeared shortly after the traps started appearing and Metatron started performing his 'miracles'. I suppose he may have changed his loyalties and has been on the run ever since. Then it would make sense for Metatron to have any angels under his command hunt him down. He knows too much.”

Dean shoves the police record away from himself, feeling jittery with adrenaline. “You think he knows how to open the door.” At Cas’ nod, he turns to Sam. “That video feed, where's it from?”

“Some store in Dixon, Missouri. Was posted just about two hours ago. He's injured, so if we leave now, we might get there in time, get the drop on him.”

Dean nods, already standing and about to turn away from the table when Cas says, “Dean, you have to stay here.”

He turns back around in confusion, but before he can protest Cas is already adding, “He'd be able to hear you from a mile away. The way Hannah described it, you don't exactly sound or look like an angel to them, but you resonate louder than even the traps Metatron laid out.” He sounds apologetic but resolute.

Dean feels anger and fear wash away the adrenaline from a moment ago, grips the back of his chair in frustration. “I can't just let you two fight him on your own! Call Hannah, ask her if she can send – ”

But Cas is already shaking his head. “They would never let us take him, or the information he carries. And I can't tell them about you either. I don't know what – ” he takes a breath, seems to struggle with what to say for a moment. “What they would do,” he finishes, quiet. Dean stares at him, sees his own fear and distress reflected back at him in Cas' eyes, and it closes up his throat.

“Dean,” Sam says after a moment, his voice level but stern, “You asked us to trust you with what you're gonna do. Can't you trust us with this?”

Dean bites back a retort about how it's not the same damned thing, knowing it's bullshit and that the matter has already been decided anyway. It still costs him when he leans heavily on the chair and closes his eyes, mutters an “Alright, fine.”

There's a moment of quiet and then the sound of Sam shutting his laptop. “Good. Cas, meet you outside in ten?”

Dean stays where he is as Sam walks past him, doesn't open his eyes, even when he feels the soft touch of Cas' hand on his shoulder.

“I'll see you soon,” Cas says, his tone uncertain, almost like he's asking a question.

Dean exhales and turns his face away. “Yeah,” weak and quiet, like he's not even sure what he’s responding to.

Cas hesitates for a moment, then he withdraws his hand. “I'll see you soon,” he repeats, and this time it sounds more like a statement.

Dean still waits until Cas is through the door and in the hallway until he opens his eyes, draws out the moment until he’s alone with the empty space.

>

It’s almost ten hours before Dean gets a hurried text from Sam saying that they have Gadreel and are on their way back. Dean has spent most of the time attempting to do useful things and then having to stop halfway through, too distracted to concentrate on anything at all. He tries to clean their weapons, but as soon as his control over his focus slips, all he can think about is the last time he saw Gadreel, the only thing he can see is the man lying on the dirty concrete, beaten to death by that Holy Roller mob. He hands start to shake and the pieces don’t fit together anymore. Eventually, he walks away.

Somehow, he manages to shove the tumbler of Scotch away at some point and goes to lie down in his room. Dean sets his phone to vibrate and keeps it in his hand, puts his headphones on and lies down on his side. The music is low, and he must fall asleep for a while, because he sees a round room with star-shaped patterns on the stone floor, light falling in from his right and throwing the corridor ahead of him in blueish dimness.

The front door shuts with a bang and he is startled out of his doze, his heart rate immediately jumping up. By the time he makes it to the front hall, the others are already down the stairs. The second he sees Gadreel's face, all the anger he's been trying to control comes to the surface, the power surges up his arms and tears at his core before he can get a grip on it. Gadreel sucks in a gasp when he sees him, and the air bristles with electricity, the bunker's lights flickering and the one above them going out in a shower of sparks.

“Dean!”

He tumbles backwards, braces himself against the wall and shuts his eyes, grits his teeth and forces himself to breathe. He hears movement and holds out a hand blindly, shouts, “Don't move! Don't move, just –”

He sucks in another breath, his heart beating in his chest like a drum, but he manages to firmly push the power back down. When the lights stop flickering he finally straightens, opens his eyes again.

Sam and Cas have Gadreel between them. The angel is in cuffs, the skin around one of his eyes is blackened and there's a blood-soaked bandage around the upper arm on his left side. Sam has a cut on his cheek, and Cas has a bruise on his jaw, his shirt-front splattered with blood, though it doesn't seem to be his.

They are still staring at him, and he holds up a hand, “I'm good.”

Sam takes a step away from their prisoner, and Cas immediately holds the angel sword he has in his left hand higher. Gadreel doesn't react to it at all. “Ran into some trouble. The angels who were after him attacked us, we had to split pretty fast,” Sam pauses. “He says he’s been looking for us. That he can give us Metatron.”

Dean looks past him at Gadreel, who stares back at him, his face unreadable. Dean nods at Cas, who walks Gadreel past them and towards the library.

Dean waits until they're out of ear-shot, then turns towards Sam. “You think he's telling the truth?”

Sam looks down the corridor, then back to Dean. He shakes his head. “I don't see why not. What’s he got to lose? With how powerful Metatron is now, he doesn’t need Gadreel. He’s expendable. It’s a smart move, actually.”

Dean shrugs, shifts his weight. “Hey, I trust your judgment. It's your call.”

Sam nods, some tension going out of his shoulders. “Then I say we listen to what he has to say.”

Dean takes a breath. “Okay, awesome.”

He starts to move towards the library when Sam asks, “What about you, are you okay?”

Dean hesitates, flexes his fingers. “Yeah, I'm – ” he pauses, cants his jaw to the side. “I slipped, for a second.”

Sam just looks at him for a moment, then moves towards the library and claps a hand on his shoulder in passing. “Well, we survived it. Come on.”

>

“I thought I was serving the mission we were created to serve, doing what we were made to do. But I was wrong. You have no reason to trust me. I have made mistakes. But I know where Metatron is and I know how to get to him.”

Gadreel is sitting in one of the chairs, Cas leaning against the table next to him, with Dean and Sam standing in front of them. Gadreel sounds pained and exhausted, but determined. He's holding a paper out to them with his cuffed hands that Cas must have given him. Sam takes it, and Gadreel continues, “It's Metatron's Cube. Draw it into the ground, and it will create a doorway into Heaven.”

Dean looks at it over Sam's shoulder and makes a disgusted sound. “This looks like some douchey band's cover art.”

Sam looks over to him with a confused frown. “What?”

Dean grimaces. “Forget it.”

Cas adds, “This is scared geometry. The Cube was meant to be removed from the human experience after the Fall because it comprises all knowledge of Creation.” He pauses and leans over to point at at the center of the overlapping, concentric circles. “This structure here, commands space, shifts it, changes it, expands it to create something new. I suppose Metatron is using the concept to his will. He needs secure, undetectable doorways to Heaven, so he bends space to create them.”

Gadreel nods. “I concur. Metatron is powerful.” He shifts his gaze to Dean, meets his eyes for the first time. “As are you. But I cannot say whether it will be enough.”

Dean sets his jaw, doesn't look away. “It'll have to be.”

Gadreel shakes his head. “I will have to come with you.” Before any of them can protest, he continues, “Metatron has created a – space, in Heaven, where he's hidden the tablet. That is where you will find him, but you will need my help.”

Dean curses, runs a hand through his hair. “Fine,” he finally bites out, “When do we get this show on the road?”

Gadreel sags in the chair, whatever strength has been holding up has finally drained away. “I will need a few hours of rest. Then I will guide you to him.”

Dean blows out a breath, crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I guess it won't make a difference. We wait until tomorrow morning, then we go in.”

Gadreel nods again, weakly, and Dean turns around and heads towards the kitchen. He feels keyed-up and exhausted all at once, and he really just needs a drink. He doesn’t know if it’s wise to leave Gadreel in the library by himself, but he decides to let Cas and Sam deal with it. Dean's head feels too full, and there's a fluttering anxious feeling in his gut. He goes for the cupboard with the whiskey, serves himself a couple of fingers worth, then leans back against the counter and downs it all at once. He just stands there for a while, his eyes closed, the cool glass pressed against his forehead.

He doesn't open his eyes when someone enters the kitchen and moves to stand between Dean's legs. When he finally does, Cas is looking at him with soft eyes, his face open and vulnerable. Dean sighs and lets the arm holding the glass sink. “Hey,” he says, his voice tired and rough.

“Hey,” Cas says back. For a moment, they just look at each other. Then, Cas leans forward slowly, until his lips brush against Dean's, softly. Dean gasps against his mouth, barely has time to press back before Cas retreats, just breathes against Dean's cheek for a moment and then pulls away.

Their eyes meet again, and Dean has to swallow, his heart jumping in his throat. Then, there are footsteps in the hallway and Cas steps out of Dean's space. Dean slumps more heavily against the counter, sets the glass down on it just as Sam enters the kitchen. Like Cas, he has changed into some fresh clothes, but he looks as exhausted as Dean feels. Dean clears his throat, moves towards the fridge. “Everybody good with pizza?”

>

Dinner is a short and mostly silent affair, neither of them really hungry or up for conversation. Dean's mind swings wildly back and forth between Gadreel's words and the way Cas' mouth felt against his. He must look more tired than he thought, because by the time they're doing clean-up, Sam just takes Dean's mostly untouched plate out of his hand and says, “Go to sleep man, you look beat. Cas and I can finish up here.”

Cas pauses where he's stacking his and Sam's plates on top of one another, lifting his head and meeting Dean's eyes. Dean isn't sure what he's reading there, rubs at the back of his neck and lets his gaze fall to the table. He motions behind himself vaguely. “Yeah, I'll just. Yeah.”

Dean goes to brush his teeth and take a quick shower, but he doesn't change into sleeping clothes. His bones feel heavy and his head weighted down with everything that has happened in the last few hours, but something is keeping him up, itching under his skin. He sits on his bed for a long time, stares at the sword leaning against the wall across the room. Dean had meant to put it in storage and lock it down until they needed it, but as he stood in front of the shelves, it just – hadn’t felt right. So he'd brought it here instead, meticulously ignoring the pull of it. Now, he stares at where it catches at the soft glow of his bedside lamp and feels an ache deep in his chest, a softly burning tingle down his arms.

He looks up and turns halfway around when there's a knock on his door. “Yeah?”

Cas opens the door, comes in and shuts it behind him, and then just stands there. He's wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts, his feet are bare. His hair is curled lightly at his neck like he's just recently showered. They stare at each other across the empty space between them for a long moment. Then, Cas comes closer until he's standing between Dean's legs, like he did back in the kitchen. Dean looks up at him, then leans forward and rests his forehead against Cas' stomach, exhales on a sigh. Cas hesitantly begins to card his fingers through Dean's hair, then his touch becomes more firm when Dean leans into it. He continues for a while, then withdraws his fingers and shifts to straddle Dean's thighs, his knees on either side of Dean's hips and pressing into the mattress. He takes Dean's face in his hands, his hold gentle, and then begins to press feather light kisses against Dean's mouth.

Dean feels his face heat and his breathing stutter when Cas moves closer. He runs his hands up Cas' bare thighs and Cas moans against his mouth. Dean pulls him closer and deepens the kiss, leans back until he sinks into the mattress, Cas weight pressing him down into it. Cas is stroking his thumbs over Dean's cheekbones, and Dean runs his hands up Cas' back. Cas withdraws one of his hands from Dean's face, runs it down Dean's chest, stopping above the frantic beat of his heart. Dean sucks in a breath through his nose and draws away from the kiss, encircles Cas' wrist with his fingers. “Wait.”

Cas immediately stills and leans back to look at Dean. His breathing is labored and his pupils are blown, but his expression is worried. “Dean?”

Dean closes his eyes and swallows thickly, his teeth clenched tight. His dick is aching, pressing against the fabric of his jeans, but his eyes are burning and fear is coiling beneath his ribs. Want and anxiety are warring inside of him, he’s hot and cold at once, torn between pushing Cas away and surrendering entirely.

“Dean, it’s okay. We can stop.”

Dean pulls in another breath, opens his eyes again but turns his face away. “No, it's okay, it's just –” He cuts himself off because his voice is raw and strained. “Just, come here.” He guides Cas back down to him with a hand in his hair, the kiss slower this time. Cas runs a hand down Dean's side as if to soothe him, and it gives Dean the courage to slip a hand under Cas' shirt to caress the warm skin at his lower back.

Cas sighs against Dean's mouth, then pushes himself up to take the shirt off. He lays a palm over the hem of Dean's shirt at his hip, looks up to search his eyes questioningly. Dean nods his permission, allowing Cas to undress him slowly, meticulously, allowing his fingers to drag lightly across Dean’s bare skin. He hesitates again when his fingertips are resting at the waistband of Dean's underwear, but his breathing is heavy and his pulse is pounding in his ears, and the warmth of Cas’ touch as he laid Dean bare has left him a trembling, frenetic mess. It’s too much, but all he can think about is how he wants to be _closer_. He looks up and every fear and every doubt finally dissolves under the weight of the want in Cas’ eyes.

“Off, get it off,” he hisses, then moans when Cas presses his naked body against his for the first time, his hard length rubbing against Dean's just right, and he twists his hands into the sheets and sucks in a deep breath, struggling to regain some control. Cas' cheek is pressed against his, his breath hot against Dean's neck. “There's – in the nightstand,” Dean breathes out, and Cas leans away for a moment. There's the sound of the drawer opening and then Cas presses a plastic bottle of lube against his fingers.

He slicks them both up with a trembling hand, Cas hissing and thrusting lightly against his touch. Cas leans back in, peppering small, soft kissing against Dean’s throat as he rocks slowly against him. Dean makes a high keening sound in the back of his throat as heat coils low in his belly. Cas runs his hands up Dean's arms, presses them into the mattress above Dean's head and entwines their fingers. Cas is whispering his name, a litany of _Dean, Dean, Dean_ that has Dean screwing his eyes shut against the burn of tears. The building heat has his breath hitching and fingers clenching around Cas’, holding on and letting go. He comes with a broken moan, his eyes squeezes shut and his chest burning. Cas tenses against him, and through the haze he can feel liquid warmth washing over his stomach.

Dean comes back to himself to with Cas' thumbs caressing the soft skin at his wrists, lying beside him with his head resting above Dean’s heart. He draws in a breath, untangling one of his hands from Cas' hold to rub at his eyes, at the dried tear tracks on his cheeks in embarrassment. Cas must have noticed, but he doesn't comment. Cas looks half asleep when he leans over to get some tissues from the drawer to clean them up, then turns off the light and lays his head back down on Dean's chest. Dean lies awake, staring into the dark, until the warmth and Cas' even breathing eases him into sleep.

>

An uncomfortable tugging sensation in his gut is what wakes Dean up before his alarm. He rolls over and rubs his hands over his arms, even though it doesn't help. Cas is lying with his back to Dean, still fast asleep. Dean wants to reach out, run a palm over his side and down his spine. But he should let Cas get what rest he can. Morning will come soon, anyway. Dean rolls out of bed carefully, pulls on his robe and grabs some clothes and heads down to the showers. He stands under the spray longer than he intends to, but the warmth fails to release the icy clench of fear inside him. Water runs in rivulets over the dark marks on his arms and he has to close his eyes and turn his face away.

When he goes back to his room, he leaves the door open a bit to let some of light from the hallway in. He stands in front of the sword for a long moment, then picks it up, tests its weight in his hand. It's heavy, the hilt ribbed, the hand guard forming an X. It's narrow and longer than his arm, the tip just hovering above the ground. It was cold when he first touched it, but now it's quickly absorbing the warmth of his skin. Dean feels weighted down with it, but grips it tighter anyway. There's a rustle of fabric behind him, he feels Cas walk up to stand behind him. Cas doesn't say anything, just leans forward, resting his forehead between Dean's shoulder blades. Dean breathes in deep and closes his eyes. He can be still, just a little while longer.

>

Gadreel is still in the library where they left him, though he's no longer in cuffs. He looks only slightly better than yesterday, his expression grave but determined. Dean picks up the drawing of Metatron's Cube. “Do we need a special place to draw this?”

Gadreel shakes his head. “Any place with the earth loose enough for the Cube to be drawn should suffice.”

Sam shifts on his feet at Dean's side. “You think we should find somewhere a little further away from the bunker?”

Gadreel speaks up again before Dean can answer, “You will have to destroy it as soon as we are gone. It would be too dangerous to leave it open while we confront Metatron.”

Sam tenses immediately, his voice rising, “Then how are you supposed to get back?” He turns around to Dean when he doesn't get an answer, his jaw bunched up in anger, but Dean shakes his head.

“We find some other way back. We gotta do this now, or it won't matter either way.”

Sam stares at the table, runs a hand through his hair and obviously swallows down whatever he was about to say. Dean looks at Cas, who is standing beside Gadreel and has been silent the entire time. He looks pale, his hair mussed and his eyes glassy. Dean holds his gaze for a moment, then squares his shoulders, tightens his hold on the sword. “Come on, let's do this.”

They go outside, and Gadreel draws the Cube into the ground a few feet away from the bunker's entrance with a stick, all thirteen circles of it perfectly aligned. The sun has risen over the horizon, but the cold from the night still hangs in the air, making Dean shiver in just his shirt. Gadreel straightens when he is done, turning and looking at Dean expectantly.

Dean shifts on his feet, looks at Sam and then at Cas. He clears his throat, “I'm good.” He claps Sam on the shoulder, who just swallows and looks down at his feet. Dean hesitates, then just briefly meets Cas' eyes and nods.

Dean steps with Gadreel into the circle and the circles illuminate. Their surroundings fall away as air shifts and expands, and the ground disappears and then slams back all at once. Dean crashes to his knees, his ears ringing - screaming whispers, a thousand voices crying out in agony. There's the brief image of endless corridors with white doors, but then it's replaced with a white floor that stretches in every direction against a sky filled with clouds that move too fast, shifting from dark and heavy with rain to white, light and swirling. Giant menacing shapes are moving across the sky and wind is tearing at Dean's clothes, pressing against him from every side. All his senses overwhelmed, his mind reeling, struggling to understand what it is perceiving.

Gadreel is clutching at Dean's arm, pulling him to his feet. “Whatever you are seeing, do not let it deter you! We must move fast, he will know that we are here!”

Dean groans, grits his teeth and forces himself to move. He keeps his eyes on the blindingly white ground, swallows down the nausea that threatens to climb up his throat. “That screaming, what the hell is it?” He shouts over the wind and the noise.

“The souls trapped in the veil!” Gadreel shouts back, guiding Dean along with a hand clasped tight around Dean's upper arm. Dean shudders, fights down the urge to cover his ears. Gadreel moves faster, though Dean can't even tell in which direction they are moving. “Come, Dean, we must hurry!”

They finally stop before a white door that seems to appear out of nowhere and stands surrounded by nothing, unattached to any wall, existing in an inscrutable space. It has the number eight on it. Gadreel lets go of Dean and pauses for a moment, closes his eyes briefly. Dean forces himself not to look at anything that's moving in their periphery, adjusts his hold on the sword. Gadreel pulls the door open.

As they step inside, the space behind the door is completely white, vacant. Then Metatron is standing just a few feet away from them. He's wearing similar clothes to the last time Dean saw him, a sweater and a woolen cardigan, looking small, harmless. He's smiling at them, the power he radiates seems to weigh down the air around them.

“There you are, finally! I had expected you much sooner, but I guess a dramatic entrance does make things a little more interesting, right?”

Gadreel ignores his words, stepping forward. “Metatron, you have betrayed our mission. I will not sit back while you corrupt the very things we were created to protect!”

Metatron sighs in long-suffering regret. “I supposed there is nothing I can say to make you turn back, then.”

The white nothing above them shatters with a sound like nails scratching over metal, clouds racing in a blue sky, forming and collapsing and reforming unnaturally fast. The air around them shimmers like it's heated, and then there's a brief flash of lightning and, just for a second, Dean sees them – hundreds of figures fill the room, blades in their hands and their eyes blindingly bright and terribly empty.

He flinches back on instinct, eyes roaming uselessly across the room, his heart beating away in terror. The lightning flashes again and he barely has time to register one of them sliding towards him, but just as he yanks up his sword in defense, Gadreel pushes him aside and the attacker’s blade is buried in the angel's chest.

“No!” Dean lashes out with his sword at the figure but it’s already disappeared again. The collapse of Gadreel's grace roars up with the sound of a wall crumbling to pieces, and then the noise ebbs away and the light fades and Dean is alone.

Dean sucks in a breath and grits his teeth. “You son of a bitch!”

Metatron shakes his head and chuckles, all pretense of empathy falling away. “Oh, come on, Dean – did you really think I didn't know what you were planning? That I couldn't have stopped that old chestnut before he ran to you to spill all the state secrets?” Metatron sighs. “I admit, not everything worked out quite as I had planned. Castiel was supposed to be the one to lead you right to me, but he just _had_ to be noble and give up his grace, didn't he? He never did know how to tell a good story. You, on the other hand – ”

Dean takes a step forward, talks over him, “Shut up. You don't get to play with our lives like this is some freakin’ game. This is going to stop, and it’s gonna stop right now.”

Metatron holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. If you think you can beat me with some dead angel spawn’s sword and a handful of borrowed heavenly wrath, go ahead.”

Dean takes another step forward and then another, feels the fire crawl up his arms and tug at his core. The lines on his skin illuminate in bright blue and thunder rolls above them, the clouds racing even faster. He raises his sword with both hands, brings it down to run Metatron clear through his chest. The sword slides through, then strikes against something, the impact reverberating all the way up Dean's arms and shooting pain through every nerve ending. The air breaks and the sky falls to pieces with a deafening roar. He crashes to his knees, still holding tight to the sword.

Light flashes, and then the faceless figures are back, surrounding them from all sides. Metatron is still there, but now Dean is seeing his true form surrounding his vessel, stretching in infinite directions and filling the space around them. Hundreds of quicksilver eyes are staring down at him, a giant wheel spinning at the back, churning with a noise like walking over glass. A mouth like a gaping abyss, filled with writhing shapes and needle sharp teeth, grins down at him. Dean gasps in terror and pain, his heart beating so frantically it feels like he's suffocating.

“So close, Dean, only to drown in shallow waters.” Metatron grips the blade with both hands and pulls it out of his chest, immaculate. “Don't you know, I have you right where I wanted you?”

He tears the sword out of Dean's hands and turns it on him, stabs him through his shoulder. Dean cries out as agony explodes in his chest, weakly fights for air as Metatron pulls the sword out again, blackness threatening to overtake his vision. Metatron tosses the sword aside and kneels down in front of Dean, his true form pressing even closer. Dean gasps, tries to lean away from it but he doesn't have the strength.

Metatron takes Dean's wrists in a tight grip, yanks his arms closer. “I hate being on Earth. It’s chaotic, it’s dirty. It’s so. Human. But with you, I won't need to go back.” The lines on Dean's arms begin to glow again, but now they're being erased, one after the other. It feels like they're being burned right out of his skin. “I’ll just replace these, and then you will spread God’s word for me. You will execute _my_ will.”

Dean struggles against him, but it's like he's buried under stones. The lines and sigils fade one after the other, until only the river patterns remain. Metatron releases his right arm for a moment to focus on the patterns around his left wrist. He frowns and shake his head at them. “Tamiel always did have a thing for nostalgia.”

Dean swallows with a clicking sound. With painful effort, he turns his head to look away from Metatron, towards where Gadreel's lifeless body lays on the floor. At the empty faces of Metatron’s soldiers. The crying of the souls howls in his ears, the sounds of Heaven reverberating through him. Dean's vision is blacking. The sky is in agony. He forces his right hand up and spreads his fingers, holds it shakily in front of Metatron's face. “I –” he forces out, his voice rough and choked. “I forgive you.”

The sky stops moving from one second to the next, and Metatron freezes. “No – ”

The sky falls, the white space is torn apart. The floor turns black and pieces of the sky crash down around them. Metatron is screaming, his form collapsing in on itself as light fills Dean's vision, growing brighter and brighter. Distantly, he’s aware the light is emanating from within him. Metatron is swallowed by the light as the angels seem to come to life around him, the sounds of Heaven shifting around them. The screaming of the souls has turned to the joyful flow of a river.

The light keeps building until it's all that there is. He's not lying on the ground anymore. He's in the hallway with the arched doorway, soft light spilling in, and a light breeze pushing sand across the floor.

This time, he walks up the doorway and enters. On the other side, the small, round room is empty but for single window. He moves closer, seeing nothing but the clear blue sky. He stares at it and slowly, the room fades away. Then, he falls.

>

Dean comes to lying on his side on the cold, hard ground. When he finally manages to open his eyes, it’s dark, and it takes him a moment to process that it's night. He shifts and then hisses when his left shoulder flares with pain. Dean touches his hand to it, feels the fabric soaked with blood. He rolls himself onto his back slowly, painfully, strains his neck to get a look at his surroundings. He's lying on concrete, and there's the dark shape of a building behind him. When he looks to his left, he spots his sword lying a few feet away from him. A short distance away, there’s a barely illuminated phone booth. Dean swallows, forces himself up to a sitting position, presses his injured arm against his chest with his other hand. He tries to stand, but blackness creeps at the edges at his vision and he falls back with a gasp. It’s a long, slow, fucking determined crawl across the cracked concrete.

He keeps his eyes on the phone booth as he forces himself forward, his jaw clenched against the pain. Weeds are growing up through the cracks, insects are chirping in the otherwise silent night. The light above the phone booth is a soft yellow, moths circling around it. Dean has to lean heavily against the scratched plastic of the booth when he reaches it, his lungs burning form the exertion. His hand leaves bloody fingerprints on the plastic.

Dean drags himself inside, searches through the dust and dried leaves on the ground for some change someone might have dropped. He finds nothing on the ground, but when he manages to raise his hand enough to grasp the receiver, the phone flashes that there's just enough for one call. He punches Sam's number in with shaking fingers and leans back against the plastic, fighting for breath.

It connects after just one ring. “Who is this?” Sam sounds tense, suspicious.

Dean laughs breathlessly into the phone. “Could use some help here.” His voice is barely a rough whisper.

Sam must recognize it though, because there's a beat of silence, and then, “Dean, where are you, are you okay?” Dean cringes away from Sam's frantic shouting, cranes his neck to look outside. The building he'd seen looks like an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere. He thinks vaguely that he's seen it before, but can't remember where. “Dean, are you there?! Dean!”

Dean swallows, black spots dancing in his vision. He looks to the dark fields on the other side of the road. Wherever he is, he’s far enough away from town that the light pollution cannot obscure the starts above.

Sam is still shouting at him, and he can hear another voice yelling in the background, the sound of something crashing to the floor.

“The field,” Dean rasps out. “The field.”

“Dean what do you mean, what field – ”

The receiver slips out of Dean's hands and his eyes close, surrendering to the stillness, to the calm.

>

Something warm is pressing against his chest.

Dean blinks his eyes open, disoriented. It's dim around him, but not as dark as it was before. As awareness creeps back in, he knows he’s lying on his side with his head pillowed on something soft, but firm. A gentle rumble fills his ears. His shoulder is a dull, throbbing pain, but it’s wrapped up tightly.

Dean breathes, recognizing the shape of the Impala's bench seat in front of him. He's lying in the back, they're driving. He can see Sam's shoulder and the side of his face where he's sitting behind the wheel. Dean's head is lying on Cas thigh, Cas' hand is pressed over Dean's heart. He's just about to close his eyes again when he catches a glint of light. Down in the foot rest lies the sword, reflecting back at him the color of morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poetry at the beginning is my own. I love season nine and ten and the Mark of Cain storyline, but this idea hit me and wouldn't let me go. Thank you for reading! Comments are very appreciated :)


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